Worlds Away From Who I Was
by bookgodess15
Summary: The last thing Chase needs in his life is dreams of House--unfortunately, they don't seem to be stopping. S4 AU, House/Chase
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: **I know it's been a while--I've relocated to LiveJournal, but after discovering the sorry state of the House/Chase 'ship over here on FFnet (which is to say, it's about as bad as it is over on LJ) I decided that it needed some multi-fandom-archive love. So I'm back, posing this story! Updates will be twice a week--Thursdays and Mondays, as always. Enjoy!

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 1**

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

His second night here in the States, and already, he'd messed up. Bloody brilliant.

Chase slammed the door of the rental car shut, turned to walk away, then realized with a suppressed howl of misery that he'd left the keys in the ignition. He whirled around and got his keys, slammed the door shut, and started walking towards the hospital.

Walk to the hospital, take two.

Well, to be accurate, he was striding. It was the closest he could come to running without making himself look like a complete idiot. He was not going to be late to his interview, he was not going to be late to his interview, he was not going to be late to his interview...

They said that Dr. House had never hired anyone before. His father had been calling for the last three weeks but Chase had refused to pick up, so for all he knew his father could have been trying to sing the praises of Gregory House. But it was more likely that his father, like his residency director and his attending and almost everyone else he'd told about this fellowship, had been trying to persuade him to stay away from the mean, grouchy Dr. House. Personally, Chase didn't see the problem. Some of his best teachers in med school had been utter jerks, but they'd known their stuff—and Dr. House was supposed to be a genius. All you needed to be able to learn from assholes was a little persistence and a thick skin.

So he'd known all this. He'd known that his chances of getting this fellowship were slim and none. He'd known that Dr. House was a bastard who actively sought out people's weaknesses so he could exploit them. He'd even known that this trip to the States was costing him nearly two grand. And what had he done last night?

He'd gone to a bar and had gotten himself drunk, and then, picked up (actually, Chase's brain quickly refuted, _he'd_ done the picking up, as they'd gone back to _his_ hotel room).

Brilliant.

Just brilliant.

Chase ran his finger down the list of offices, searching for Diagnostics. Whatever the hell that was.

Before he could find it, though, the elevator doors opened and he was almost knocked over by the wave of people that poured out. He staggered slightly as people ran into him, but managed to stay standing. Gritting his teeth in irritation, he swiped hair out of his eyes and tried to find where he'd left off. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid—

Then he saw it.

_Diagnostics … 4th Floor_

Thank God.

Chase let out a breath of relief, and stepped onto the elevator before the doors could close. He did not need another delay. Not today.

He pushed up his shirt sleeve to glance at his watch. Two minutes. He had two minutes to get up to the fourth floor and find Dr. Gregory House's office. It wasn't bad, but it would have been a lot worse if he'd taken the time to leave some cab fare for last night's entertainment. If he hadn't been panicking, Chase probably would have felt guiltier about leaving the guy five minutes after he'd woken up with only some piss-poor hotel coffee and a harried apology. He couldn't even bring himself to care about what, exactly, he would return to. For all he knew, the guy would steal everything in the place.

Oh well. He had all the important things on him right now, and this job was definitely worth a few shirts and a razor.

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Chase had one foot off the elevator when he caught sight of the floor number above the doors and stopped.

This was only the third floor.

He exhaled slowly to reign in his frustration and stepped back, allowing two nurses into the elevator. To make things worse, he could feel the beginnings of a headache behind his eyes. Thank you, American beer. Just what he needed right now.

But then at last—hallelujah, at last—the elevator came to the fourth floor.

"Thank God," he muttered, brushing past the two nurses.

Maintenance closet. Break room. Vending machine. Some weird outer office. Dr. Gregory House's office. Dr. James Wil—

Wait.

Chase backed up.

_Dr. Gregory House_, the door read in gray letters. _Department of Diagnostic Medicine_

He'd found it.

Chase looked inside and saw a man sitting at the desk, on the phone—and Dr. House did not look happy. Hopefully, he was mad because someone had put too much creamer in his coffee, or because the mechanic had called him to say that the repair was going to cost him several hundred dollars more than they'd originally anticipated, and not because his first interview wasn't in yet.

He hesitated, and then took a deep breath. He had to steel himself for anything here. About his father, his med school, his nationality, his hotel of choice... The guy was a bastard. He was going to zero in on any chink in the armor that he could find.

Chase swallowed, and then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Dr. House looked up at his entrance, and then hung up the phone. There was a brief pause, and then an expression of restrained frustration tightened his face. "I am so sorry."

Chase stopped and blinked.

He didn't sound like the asshole that he'd heard so much about.

"You had an interview scheduled for eight o'clock?" Dr. House asked, pulling out a file folder. "Dr. Robert Chase?"

"Yes," Chase said slowly.

"Dr. House isn't in yet," the man—who was obviously not Dr. House, then—told him apologetically. "He isn't picking up his home phone—I was just about to try his cell phone. Do you mind waiting?"

"Not at all," Chase answered, almost automatically. He glanced around for somewhere to sit.

_This is a dream._

He stopped, frowning.

_A dream. A memory. You're reliving this for the hundredth time. _

Chase took a seat in the chair across from the desk, watching as the-man-who-was-not-Dr.-House dialed a number.

_That's Dr. Wilson. He was there to make sure that House was civil to his interviewees. Now, you're going to discover that—_

Loud, obnoxious music blasted from his pocket.

Chase was so startled that he nearly fell out of his chair. What the hell?

That was definitely not his ringtone.

But regardless, he opened the phone up and brought it up to his ear. "Hello?"

Then he looked up and saw the man—Dr. Wilson—staring at him with a confused expression.

"Dr. Chase?" he asked, puzzled.

What had him confused quickly became apparent as Dr. Wilson's voice sounded directly in Chase's ear—from the cell phone that he was holding.

Pulling the cell phone away from his ear, Chase ended the call and brought the screen back to the main menu.

Definitely not his background.

With something akin to horror rising from the pit of his stomach, Chase slowly raised his eyes to meet Wilson's.

"Why do you have House's cell phone?" Wilson asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chase opened his mouth, but no words came out of his mouth.

Shit.

He'd grabbed the wrong cell phone this morning. And that meant...

"Dr. Wilson," he said slowly. "Dr. House doesn't use a cane, does he?"

Eyebrow still raised, Wilson nodded. "Yes. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that you've already met him?"

"Yeah," Chase said faintly. "Something like that."

Wilson opened his mouth to ask something else, when all of a sudden, House's cell phone went off.

Chase saw his own number on the screen and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello, Dr. Chase."

Everything clicked. This _was_ a dream. He knew this scene, he'd relived it a million times in his dreams. God knew why, it had been four years ago, but he'd had this dream before. He wasn't even working for House anymore. He was working in surgery—and more importantly, he was dating Cameron, which was why this dream didn't matter. It was just parading old news in front of him.

"Hey House," he answered, rolling his eyes. "Enjoying the room service?"

House paused. "Hey. You're not supposed to say that."

"This is a dream," Chase said matter-of-factly, ignoring the confused expression on Wilson's face. "I can say whatever I want."

"Your mother was a selfish bitch who should have died giving birth to you."

"That's not very nice."

"It's a dream. I can say whatever I want," House reminded him.

"You always say whatever you want," Chase pointed out, rolling his eyes.

"Do not," House retorted. "I never told you how undeniably sexy you look in that black shirt of yours."

"Which one?" Chase asked, trying to mentally index all of his black shirts.

"I think you know which one," House said. "The one with long sleeves that you left with the top three buttons undone just—"

"I am not having phone sex in a dream," Chase cut him off.

House exhaled. "Damn."

"One night stand, House. It was four years ago. I'm with Cameron now," Chase told him, although he was unsure of why he was reminding his subconscious of this. "Not to mention, you fired me."

"Aw, c'mon. This is just a dream." There was a pause. "Cameron will never know!"

"Good night, House," Chase sighed, and then he snapped the phone shut.

Abruptly, he realized that his beginnings-of-a-headache had condensed into a real headache. Damn. He needed some Tylenol.

He looked up at Wilson, who was valiantly trying to keep the curiosity off of his face.

"Is there something I should know?" Wilson finally asked, his tone polite.

"Dr. House and I are acquainted," Chase said lightly. "Also, I do believe I've been hired."

Then it ended.

oOo

Blearily, Chase opened his eyes.

The dark of his bedroom surrounded him. He had no headache and it had definitely been four years since his interview because he'd since got an apartment and brought the rest of his belongings over from Australia. So it had definitely been just a dream. But he hadn't lingered over that day in months, hadn't even dreamt of it since he'd been fired, so why now? When he was finally leaving House behind, his mind decided that he needed to be reminded of that little mistake. Why _now_, of all times?

Dammit.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

oOo

"House is insane," Cameron said, by way of greeting.

Chase paused, and then swallowed his mouthful of bagel. "Good morning to you, too."

"He's split them up into teams," Cameron continued, rolling her eyes. "Guys on girls, I think, except for Cutthroat Bitch, who wanted to be with the guys. First team to cure the patient—to diagnose him, actually—doesn't get fired."

Chase frowned. "How does that make him insane? That's just House playing his little games. I'm sure he's already got the whole thing figured out already—he's reckless, but he's not stupid."

"It's dangerous," Cameron insisted. "What if they treat him for two things at once, and the treatments clash and kill him?"

"I'm sure House is watching," Chase said reasonably. "How do you know about this, anyway? I thought that we had an agreement to stay away from House."

"Cutthroat Bitch came to me, looking for help," Cameron admitted, exhaling.

Then, quite suddenly, things made a lot of sense.

Chase couldn't hold back a grin. "She conned you."

"She did not!" Cameron protested.

"She did," Chase said, biting back laughter. "She wanted a hint, and she knew exactly what to say to get you to tell her."

"She did not con me!" Cameron insisted. "I only gave her a suggestion so that the poor man doesn't end up dead in the crossfire. Even if she hadn't played the ethics card, I would—"

"Hey," Chase interrupted gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. So she got you—at least one of you has a little humanity left in you, right?"

Cameron looked frustrated.

"This is why you left," Chase reminded her. "So you wouldn't turn into someone like... Cutthroat Bitch, you said her name was? Does she have a real name, or was her mother just in a particularly vindictive mood after giving birth?"

A hint of a smile flitted across Cameron's face.

Then she sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I have no idea. I've been up all night and I need to sleep."

"What did you tell her?" Chase asked, curious despite himself.

"I told her to try xenodiagnosis," Cameron replied in half-hearted exasperation. "It's a long shot, though. Just because I worked with him for three years doesn't mean that he taught me anything—there's not a magic formula to it all. If there was, Foreman would have figured it out and patented it, and then bought stock."

"I don't know," Chase said thoughtfully, ignoring the jab at Foreman. He took another bite of his bagel before he continued. "I think that House taught. I highly doubt it was intentional, but I learned a lot under him."

Cameron shook her head. "Whatever. I'm going home and sleeping—I hate night shift."

"You up for something this evening?" Chase asked, trying to remember what her shift had been. He was pretty sure that it had started yesterday at noon, but he wasn't sure. Frankly, it was more than enough for him to keep track of his own wild schedule.

"No," Cameron said, giving him an apologetic smile. "I'm coming back in a four. I'm covering for Sandy until nine."

Chase didn't have the faintest clue who Sandy was, but nodded just the same. "I'm working six to six today. Maybe tomorrow?"

Cameron nodded. "Yeah. See you."

"Yeah," Chase echoed. "See you."

oOo

House was, indeed, playing a game with his twenty-something team members. It was hot news around the hospital—so much so that Chase wondered if House was getting a cut of someone's pay in order to keep perpetuating all this drama with his potential fellows. If so, Chase had to find out who it was, because he wanted to get a betting pool going for the next week's show. It was probably one of the nurses, or some receptionist, or maybe even an intern who was trying to make up all the Survivor episodes he was missing. Whoever it was, it was most certainly not a surgeon, or anyone remotely connected with the department.

Chase had quickly found that surgery was kind of like the Switzerland of a hospital. Because everyone relied on it, the department almost never had to participate in hospital politics in order to get what it needed. And even though everyone relied on it the work itself was not controversial. There were no arguments, no leaps of faith, no weighing of one impossible choice against another impossible choice. It was very cut and dry, and about as far away from Diagnostics as you could possibly get without banishing yourself to the morgue.

He rather liked it. He came in, did his part, and then passed the patient back to their doctor. Whether or not the surgery was successful was not his problem. If the patient woke up and was still sick, he didn't have to worry about figuring out what was _actually_ wrong with him. Despite the rise in malpractice insurance, Chase found that he'd been a lot more stressed while working under House.

Well, to be more accurate, he'd been more stressed working under House when they'd had a case. The other six days of the week, he might as well have watched chicken defrost for all the—

Chase exhaled, stopping his train of thought.

He needed to stop thinking about House.

It was because of that stupid dream from last night. His mind hadn't even wandered in the direction of his former boss for weeks, and then out of nowhere, House popped into his dream. And not just any dream, but the memory of his interview, which had been one of Chase's more embarrassing mornings.

But how could he help it when half the hospital was on the edge of their seats as they waited for an update? Chase had been given a blow-by-blow account of the drama that had unfolded thus far over lunch, and was kept so up-to-date on the whole thing that when Cutthroat Bitch came to him mid-afternoon, he didn't need her to catch him up on the latest news.

Which was good, because Cutthroat Bitch had certainly come in with the assumption that he was one of those on the edge of his seat, waiting to see what would happen next.

"Do you think House could be wrong?" she asked without preamble.

"I thought he fired you?" Chase asked casually, not turning around to look at her and continuing to scrub at his hands.

"No, he fired the men," Cutthroat Bitch corrected.

Chase opened his mouth to say something rather rude, but thought better of it. Instead, he shut his mouth and turned around. Cutthroat Bitch was holding a CT scan in one hand, and he squinted at it. There was a moment of suspended silence as he studied it.

"Don't think he's wrong," Chase said at last, keeping his tone light.

But Cutthroat Bitch had a bone to pick with him, apparently, because she persisted.

"If he is, how would I prove it?" she asked, not the slightest bit discouraged by the fact that Chase had returned to washing his hands.

"Just said I don't think he is," Chase reminded her.

"Well, thinking isn't good enough," Cutthroat Bitch said, and Chase knew that she was glaring without looking at her.

Damn.

"You'd have to run a blood test for anti-sentriamia antibodies," he finally allowed.

Cutthroat Bitch hesitated. "Would you mind running the labs?"

"You can't," Chase said flatly.

Cutthroat Bitch took it as a question. "Well, I can, but—"

Chase turned around and cut her off before she could even get a footing on her answer. "No, I was making a statement. You've been fired, so you no longer have lab privileges. You weren't coming here for advice, you coming here to con a favor to save your job. Sorry. I'm not working for him any more, but he can still make my life miserable."

This was also part of the agreement that he and Cameron had made. House would probably actively seek them out, but there was no need to antagonize him into doing it.

And with that said, he made to walk away.

"You have a chance to make his life miserable," Cutthroat Bitch called after him.

Chase stopped, and then turned to face her.

"I'm insulted," he said, frowning at her. "You conned Cameron by appealing to her humanity."

"I told her what she wanted to hear," Cutthroat Bitch told him off-handedly—sounding, at last, like a cutthroat bitch.

"And you told me what you thought I wanted to hear," Chase continued, and then he paused a moment to reflect on what, exactly,she thought he wanted. To get back at House? To seek out revenge for his unfair dismissal?

Not hardly. He'd just prefer to forget that the last three years had ever happened, actually.

Right?

"If it's any consolation," Cutthroat Bitch put in, "I think your motives are more interesting."

His motives.

Frankly, he had no idea what his motives were, but now that the opportunity was presented to him—a little revenge wouldn't hurt.

"I cannot believe he fired you," Chase sighed at last, shaking his head slightly. "Go draw some blood. I'll meet you in the lab when I'm done here."

And then he left, wondering why the hell he'd just agreed to instigate a fight with House when he'd come back to this hospital, vowing that he wanted nothing to do with the man.

oOo

Cameron was furious.

"You said that you were going to stay far away from House!" she said incredulously. "I can't believe you!"

"So did you," Chase reminded her.

"That was different," Cameron said dismissively. "She came looking for me, and then she manipulated me into helping her. But you—"

"Were obviously manipulated, too," Chase cut in smoothly, shrugging one shoulder. "She got me, same as she got you. Next time, we'll both know to watch out."

Cameron narrowed her eyes. "She did _not_ manipulate you."

"And why not?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because you wouldn't have fallen for it," Cameron said flatly. "I know you. You're as good as House when it comes to reading people, and there's no way that you would have helped her without knowing exactly why you were doing it."

"I'm glad you think so highly of me." Chase grinned wryly.

Cameron pursed her lips, obviously fighting back more of a lecture. At last, she huffed and glared at him.

"Well, I hope you're happy with yourself," she said waspishly. "House is going to hunt you down, and God knows he's not in the best of moods right now."

Chase tilted his head. "Why not?"

"He slept in his office last night," Cameron answered, grimacing.

"Ah." Chase winced. That did, indeed, not make for a very pleasant House. "Good thing I'm headed home, then."

Cameron brightened. "Actually, I came to tell you that I managed to get an hour off for dinner. Did you want to go somewhere?"

"Yeah," Chase said, more relieved that she was done being angry than that she'd managed to score an hour of free time. "Yeah, that'd be great. Meet you in the lobby in ten?"

"All right." Cameron smiled.

oOo

But it appeared that Chase had spoken to soon, because he had just made it back down to the lobby and met up with Cameron when he heard a familiar voice shout at him from behind.

"I could have you fired!"

Chase didn't have to turn around to know that House was pissed.

"You've already had me fired," he reminded House, stopping. Alongside him, Cameron stopped as well. He could just hear her thinking _I told you so, I told you so, la la-la la-la la..._

"Which just proves that I can," House said without missing a beat.

Chase turned around to see House furiously making his way towards them, his limp even more pronounced with his anger.

"Were the men wrong?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

House scowled. "No. That doesn't change the fact—"

"Why are you yelling at me?" Chase asked, cutting him off.

"Because preforming tests for someone who is not a doctor in this hospital—"

"You're frustrated," Chase said, interrupting him again with such ease that House looked a little stunned. "If you want help, I'm here. If you just need to vent... Leave a message."

He turned around and walked away, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself.

Cameron followed a moment later, grinning happily. She spent the whole drive to the restaurant delightedly recounting the conversation.

oOo

They had a good time at dinner. Cameron was happy as a clam, and was still smiling when Chase dropped her back off at the hospital. He deflated a little upon getting back to his apartment, but he managed to retain most of his high spirits when he turned on the TV and discovered a not-even-halfway-over game of football. Neither team played particularly well, but that was okay. He didn't mind sitting in front of the television mindlessly for a few hours. It helped clear his mind.

It took him fifteen minutes to pick a team to root for—because Chase believed that loyalty was important, even if it was only for an hour to a bunch of people who couldn't even hear him—but sadly, the team that he'd chosen ended up being crucified by the end of the third quarter. Regardless, he watched the game until the end and then a few commercials afterward. But when the Geico gecko walked onto the screen and started carrying on in that familiar accent, Chase knew that it was time to turn in.

Talking geckos.

Ridiculous.

He was coming out of the bathroom, ready to crawl into bed, when his cell phone started ringing.

For a moment, Chase thought of his dream from last night, but he quickly pulled himself back down to reality and trudged over to the couch to find the blasted thing. The list of people who would be calling him was quite short, and chance was good that it was somebody from surgery asking him to come in tonight. Or House wanting to yell at him a bit more.

But when he answered, he was surprised to hear Cameron on the other line.

"Are you still at work?" he asked, squinting at the clock on the wall and trying to see if he'd somehow lost track of time.

"Only for another hour," Cameron said, waving his question away, clearly impatient to tell him something. "It's not important."

"What happened?" Chase asked.

Cameron took in a deep breath. "House tried to kill himself."

Chase sat down on the couch.

"You're joking."

"He stuck a knife in an electrical socket."

Chase swallowed. "Is he okay?"

"He's alive," Cameron replied grimly. "Unconscious with a wicked burn on his hand, but he's alive. His heart stopped for a minute or so."

"Brain damage," Chase muttered, his mind racing faster than he could keep up.

"Yeah." Cameron sighed.

It was silent.

"Okay," Chase said at last. "Well, thanks for telling me. Let me know if anything happens, okay?"

"Will do." Cameron sounded faintly disappointed.

Chase hung up. He stood up, tossed the phone back onto the couch, and then went to bed without processing what had just happened. He'd think about it in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 2**

The moment his surroundings fell into place, Chase knew exactly where he was, when he was, and why he was there—which was more than he could say for last night's dream. He was in the elevator of his hotel, April of four years ago, and he was returning from his interview. It picked up a half an hour from where things had left off last night, when he'd woken up, only this time, Chase had no illusions about whether or not he was dreaming. Even though this was definitely one of the most vivid dreams (memories, his brain stubbornly insisted) he'd ever had, in reality, he was laying alone on his bed, in the year 2007. This wasn't actually happening.

But right now, he was in the elevator. The first time this had happened, four years ago, House had already picked up and left, leaving him only a note that read, "You might want to call your dad back." Against his better judgment, Chase had. Within seconds of picking up, he father had begun assaulting him with a barrage of questions about what, exactly, he was doing in America and if he had any idea how dangerous it was to hire a sadist in a hotel.

Chase wasn't sure what to expect this time. Dreams were the funniest things. For instance, the splitting headache that he'd developed in House's office had all but disappeared.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped off, peering down the hallway before making his way to his room. He found it a bit strange that he knew exactly where his feet were leading him after all this time, but before he could ponder it too much, he was standing in front of a door that he knew to be the one that opened up to his room. He knew instinctively that the room key was in his back left pocket.

"About time you got here," a voice called as he opened the door.

Chase held back a groan. Of course House would be in his dreams again tonight. The bastard had tried to kill himself—it would only be fair.

"You're supposed to be gone," he called back, slipping off his shoes. As he stepped in, he saw House sprawled out on the bed, wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. "Did you need a nap before you attempted pants?"

House turned his head to the side to look at him. "I'm checking for cracks in the ceiling."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh." He slid off his jacket, threw it over the TV, and then began working at his tie. "So why are you still here?"

"You have my cell phone."

Chase stuffed his hand in his pocket and pulled out House's cell phone. He threw it, and it landed on House's stomach. "Where's mine?"

Lazily, House pointed in the vague direction of the nightstand.

Chase caught sight of it next to the hotel phone. "Thanks. What are you going to do now?"

"Beats me," House said. "I was pretty damn bored until you showed up."

"Yes," Chase replied dryly. "The party can start now."

House inhaled slowly and moved on the bed in a way that could only be described as—Chase wouldn't have thought it possible with his leg—languorously. It didn't take a genius to put together what it was that he wanted to do.

"No."

Clearly frustrated, House exhaled. "Why not?"

Chase chose not to answer, and instead finished un-threading the tie from his neck.

"God, this dream is boring," House complained.

"So change it, then." Chase moved to his duffel to look for more casual clothes, utterly disinterested in House.

"To _what?_" House asked petulantly.

"How about to the fact that you tried to kill yourself today," Chase suggested, suddenly working hard to maintain the casual tone.

House groaned.

Finding a decent t-shirt at last, Chase grabbed it and zipped the bag shut. He began undoing the buttons of his shirt, and as he went down he turned around to look at House. "I'm immensely curious. What were you hoping to accomplish? Did you want to get out of clinic duty? Did you want to make Wilson feel guilty? Was the pain too much? Did you finally get a hold of a goddamn mirror and realize what a pathetic, cowardly piece of _shit_ you—"

"I didn't try to kill myself!"

Chase went silent at House's words. His breathing was erratic and his hands were trembling with sudden suppressed fury. He couldn't grasp the next button.

"Well then what the hell were you trying to do?" he asked, staring House in the eyes.

House scowled. "I wanted to _almost_ kill myself."

Chase didn't trust himself to say anything.

"I was proving something to a patient," House explained, now looking less angry and more along the lines of irritated. "Why the hell do you care, anyway? Didn't you just chew me out a few hours ago?"

Chase struggled to speak. His words were choked and barely louder than a whisper. "I'd hardly call it chewing out."

"You hate me. Answer the question."

Chase swallowed. "What were you trying to prove to your patient?"

"Unimportant."

"No, it's not," Chase insisted. Suddenly needing the distraction, he found feeling in his fingers and finished unbuttoning his shirt.

He wanted out of this dream. Couldn't his subconscious have picked another issue for him to resolve tonight?

"Afterlife. I was proving the nonexistence of an afterlife," House said quietly.

"And?" Chase asked, sliding his shirt off.

House raised his eyebrows. "Right now, I'm thinking I was wrong."

"This is a dream, not afterlife," Chase said, ignoring the way that House's eyes were sliding hungrily over his bare chest. Let him think he was in hell, doomed to stare but never get.

"Wrong sort of dream to be having while I'm in the hospital," House muttered.

Chase pulled his t-shirt over his head.

"Fucking tease."

"You'll live," Chase said dryly, shaking hair out of his eyes.

"I might not," House pointed out. "What if I die this morning from heart damage?"

"You don't have heart damage," Chase said. "Just a nasty burn on your hand."

House looked at him with sudden interest. "Really?"

Chase nodded.

"Huh." House laid back, thinking about this for a minute or two.

In the meantime, Chase grabbed a pair of jeans and headed toward the bathroom.

"Did they solve the case yet?" House yelled after him.

Chase shut the door. "The bathroom's only ten feet from the bed. No need to shout."

"Did they?" House persisted at a more normal tone.

"I have no idea," Chase answered. He frowned as he realized that his headache was starting to come back.

House sighed. "How long is this dream going to last?"

"You could go back to your apartment," Chase suggested. "Laguna Beach hasn't ended yet, right?"

"Nope," House said, but he didn't appear to find the idea very interesting. "Not until 2006. But reruns are boring."

"Mm," Chase hummed noncommittally. He flushed the toilet and started washing his hands.

On the bright side, getting all of this out in a dream meant that if he ever had to talk to House about his suicide attempt in real life, he'd be able to hold it together and keep up his cool. Maybe that had been the idea all along.

"So how are things with Cameron?" House asked suddenly.

"Fine," Chase replied, folding up the dress pants that he'd traded in favor of jeans. He opened the door and shut off the light.

"Liar," House accused. He hadn't moved from his spot on the bed, but watched as Chase walked past him.

"Nope," Chase said lightly. "Things are great."

"Dates?"

Chase nodded.

"Sex?" House continued.

Chase looked at House over his shoulder in surprise. "Of course. What kind of eunuch do you take me for?"

"Your place or hers?" House persisted, not acknowledging Chase's look.

Chase rolled his eyes and looked at his duffel, wondering where his subconscious was going with this. "Usually mine. Does it matter to you?"

"No, not really," House decided. Even with his back turned, Chase could feel his eyes on the back of his head. "Does it matter to you?"

As Chase shook his head, he realized that his headache had faded already.

House exhaled. "Where the hell are my pants, anyway?"

"Wherever you left them," Chase said unhelpfully. He zipped his duffel shut.

"More like, wherever you threw them," House muttered.

"You could look for them," Chase suggested, when he turned around and found that House was still laying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

"Already did," House countered, not moving.

Chase restrained a smile. "And that's why you're still here? Because you can't find your pants?"

"Not really," House said, and if he were sitting up, he probably would have shrugged. "Last time, I just borrowed a pair of yours."

"Do you want to borrow a pair of pants?" Chase asked slowly.

What he really wanted to know was why House hadn't just borrowed a pair of pants and hightailed it out of here like he had four years ago. However, he highly doubted that House would answer that question. His subconscious seemed to have a knack for portraying House impossibly well.

"Yep," House said.

He made no move to get off the bed.

"I'm not dressing you," Chase informed him as he began digging through his bag for a pair of pants.

"Something long," House instructed from behind him. "I'm taller than you."

"Really?"

Chase finally found the other pair of slacks that he'd brought, which were slightly longer than the pants he'd worn this morning, pulled them out and threw them at House.

It suddenly occurred to him that the fact that his subconscious knew House so well could be an advantage.

"Do you think you'll try to kill yourself again?" he asked as House worked on getting the pants on.

"Probably not," House answered, but he sounded thoughtful. "Unless there are inconclusive results, in which case I might need to try it again. Of course, shocking myself was kind of risky—I'll have to think of another way for next time. Hanging is instantaneous, a gun is too easy to misfire, jumping would mean months of rehab and recovery and lectures about pain management from Wilson, pills would mean more liver damage, a car accident would mean higher premiums..." He paused, lost in thought for a moment. "I'm thinking drowning," he said at last, nodding to himself.

Chase fixed him with an unamused stare. "If you do decide to almost kill yourself again, let me know beforehand so that I can be the one to keep your head under the water."

House laughed.

"Do you need to borrow some shoes, too?" Chase asked archly, watching House finally stand up.

"No," House said, throwing him a dirty look.

"Maybe some socks? Money for a cab? How about your cane? I'm sure they have a wheelchair around here somewhere..."

House flipped him off as he limped, sans cane, around to the other side of the bed. He bent over carefully, and a moment later, rose with his cane held triumphantly in his hand.

"Bravo," Chase said sarcastically. He leaned back against the television.

"Be at work tomorrow morning," House ordered as he walked past Chase on his way to the door. "Eight o'clock sharp."

Chase blinked, thrown. "What?"

House sat down on the bed with his shoes, and the flashed Chase a smirk. "Be there or be square. Also, you might want to call your dad back."

"Did you tell him that you were part of a dominance service again?" Chase demanded, but his only answer was a devilish grin. He groaned. "House!"

House rose to his feet, grabbed his cane, and walked over to the door. "I'll call you tonight," he said as he pulled the door open.

"I am not having phone sex with you!" Chase called after him.

The door shut with a click.

All at once, Chase realized that his headache was back.

Wincing, he began looking around for Tylenol. He'd made sure to bring some with him, he was sure of that, and if he didn't then he'd just go out and buy a bottle. This headache had come out of nowhere, but it was getting worse by the second. Dammit.

He found a bottle of acetaminophen in his duffel, quickly downed two, and then he made his way over to the door and flicked off the lights. The pain was increasing in tenfold with every passing second. By the time he laid down on the bed, he was fairly sure someone trying to split his skull in two. He pressed his face into the pillow, gritting his teeth against each throb, and wondered if this was a migraine. It couldn't be. He didn't have a tendency for migraines and, besides that, he wasn't experiencing any neurological symptoms other than pain.

Yes, there was definitely pain. When the hell were the pills going to kick in?

And then, past the headache, Chase suddenly felt the sharp edges of nausea in his stomach.

He exhaled, not daring to groan.

This was quite possibly the worst dream he'd ever had.

oOo

He did not manage to fall asleep, in his dream. Time didn't even pass irregularly—he laid there on the bed, feeling hour after hour of sickness. His head pounded relentlessly and the nausea swelled in and out of his throat, and he was definitely sweating. At one point, he stumbled out of bed to go to the bathroom. He'd tried to splash some cold water on his face, hoping that it would help, but the contrast of hot and cold only made him feel more nauseous, and he sunk to the floor, curling into a ball.

Eventually, the nausea had passed, and he'd crawled back into bed.

Distantly, he'd wondered if the pills were helping any. If he was like this with them, what would this be like without them?

Chase swallowed three more pills.

He staggered back to the bed, trying not to open his eyes and swallowing the bile in the back of his throat, holding out his hands to make sure that he didn't run into anything—

And then the phone rang. It _screamed_.

Chase saw white.

The noise seemed to penetrate his very being, stabbing his ears and plunging into the very center of his brain. He was fairly certain that he was on the floor, but he was beyond caring. All he knew was pain—agonizing, horrible pain that seemed to crush his skull. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist. All he wanted to do was melt into the floor and cease to be.

It had to be House calling. He'd said that he would call, and despite Chase's insistence that he wouldn't have phone sex with him, he must have decided it was worth a shot.

Gritting his teeth and holding his breath, Chase pushed himself up off the floor and stumbled forward in what he hoped was the direction of the nightstand. The ringing was getting louder, to the point that he actually felt dizzy with pain, and he put his hand out so that he wouldn't have to get so close. With a bit of a struggle, Chase found his cell phone and opened it, and then blindly searched for the button that would shut it off. He was spinning, his stomach was churning and he was seeing colors flash before his eyes. It was such a relief when the noise stopped that he nearly passed out.

But he did not. That would have been a kindness. Instead, he merely fell back onto the bed, too sick to even care what was going on. He laid down and wished that he could curl up, but knew that it would only make him feel worse. Instead, he laid on his side and tried to think of something to distract him, but thinking hurt. He didn't want to think. He just wanted to die. He wanted this dream to end.

oOo

His alarm went off.

The alarm really was going off.

Chase opened his eyes, half expecting to have a splitting headache and nausea belting him in the stomach, but it had gone. He found himself staring up at the ceiling of his own apartment, not of the hotel.

The dream was over.

With a sigh of relief, he reached over and turned off his alarm.

That was the second night in a row that he'd had a dream like that, where he'd known that it was a dream. It probably had something to do with his abrupt dismissal of House when House had tried to yell at him about helping Amber, or with House's suicide attempt yesterday. Possibly a combination of the two. Hopefully tonight, he'd return to his normal dreams.

He picked Cameron up that morning. She was going out with friends that night and didn't want the hassle of a car, and Chase got off earlier than her today anyway. He was working routine surgeries until eleven, and then he was assisting on the separation of Siamese twins. It was a risky surgery, with a slim chance of survival for either baby, as they were conjoined at the upper thoracic vertebrae—just barely missing a few of the higher cranial nerves. They had the chief neurological surgeon from Princeton General coming over to assist—Chase considered himself extremely lucky that he'd been the one to carry the case over from NICU to surgery, otherwise he would have been up in the gallery with a dozen other jealous residents.

"So no chance of lunch?" Cameron asked, as Chase explained it.

Chase shook his head. "No. I'm just going to grab a sandwich before I scrub in."

Cameron was silent for a minute.

"Are you sure that you don't want to come tonight?" she asked for the thousandth time.

Chase nodded. Again. "Yeah. You go have your fun—I'll stay home and invite my other girlfriend over, and we'll make love all over the couch."

Cameron swatted him on the arm.

"Domestic violence," Chase muttered, shoving her back lightly.

"Oh shut up," Cameron said, exasperated.

Chase smirked, but kept his eyes on the road.

"When's your next day off?" Cameron asked him suddenly.

"Uh, next Wednesday," Chase told her. He turned to look at her. "Why?"'

Cameron shrugged. "I was thinking we could do something. I need to go shopping—" She giggled at Chase's horrified expression. "Not for clothes—I need a new sink for my bathroom. My old one's chipped everywhere. And afterwards, we could get dinner and a movie."

Chase was silent. On one hand, she wanted his input on buying a new sink—or at least, she wanted the gas in his car. On the other hand, she was buying a new sink and clearly had no plans of going anywhere for quite some time. It was a problem he constantly ran into. Cameron only seemed to be in this halfway, despite her insistences that she was in it for the long run, and it drove him crazy sometimes. All the time.

"We can see one of your stupid action movies," Cameron offered, apparently thinking that he needed a little persuasion.

But stupid action movies were always a plus.

"Sure," Chase agreed, flashing her a grin.

Cameron rolled her eyes.

oOo

Chase was filled in on the happenings of House's team before he got into his first surgery Ricky, an intern, had apparently been assigned the task of updating everyone in the surgical department by one of the nurses, and the rest of the hospital had been similarly divided up between other interns. Personally, Chase thought that someone was overestimating just how many people really cared about the happenings of Diagnostics. He also thought that it was a bit cruel to the interns.

But then again, the interns were a bit stupid to follow such orders in the first place.

"...and then the dog died, leading House to realize that the dog had eaten the pills for the strongyloides, which was Thirteen's mistake. She hadn't made sure that the guy took the pills. But House didn't fire her. He didn't fire anyone. They all went home about five this morning." Ricky stopped, looking a little out of breath.

Chase, who had been changing into his scrubs during the recounting, turned to look at him in amusement.

"Any questions?" Ricky asked him.

"Have you considered starting a newsletter?" Chase replied.

Ricky did not look happy with him. "Do you know where Jin is this morning?"

"Nope," Chase said, shaking his head.

Ricky walked away, muttering something about overpaid assholes.

Chase couldn't hold back a grin.

oOo

Just as he had told Cameron, he ended up eating a sandwich (in two very large, very fast bites) in the locker room. In his head, he went over how the procedure was going to go, reminding himself of scalpel sizes and nerve innervations and stitchings. It was the first time in a while that he'd been on the learning end of a surgery—nearly five years, actually—and he'd wanted to be prepared for any questions that would be fired his way. Pimp questions, they were called. He'd only had appendectomies this morning, which were systematic enough that he'd been able to zone out and worry about the separation surgery this afternoon.

All the preparation had been a good idea, it had turned out, because the guest surgeon from Princeton General might have mistaken the OR for a game show, he fired out so many questions. No one was safe from him—not even the nurse who had walked in to deliver another bag of blood.

Chase was right up front. He was sponging and watching intently as the two men tried to trace nerve origins so that they could divide them up correctly.

"This is Natalie's vagus," Peters said to the almost-silent OR, indicating the innervation with the tip of his scalpel.

Across from him, Kurtzman nodded. "That's two CN10 nerves. Good. What are we counting next, Dr. Chase?"

"Spinal nerves," Chase answered.

Kurtzman nodded. "Right. And how many are we looking for, Dr. Sargetti?"

Next to Chase, Alan Sargetti shifted. They were crowded so closely that when he shifted his weight, Chase felt it. "Eight pairs. One cervical and seven thoracic."

"Very good."

Someone's pager went off, and out of the corner of his eye, Chase saw one of the nurses leave the table to take care of it.

Focusing back on the surgery, Chase noticed that there was a slight pooling of blood on Zoe's side, and he carefully moved to clear it off. He quickly moved back to Natalie as the hunt for spinal nerves began, not wanting his arm to be in the way.

"Dr. Chase?" a voice called across the OR.

Chase looked up.

"It's your patient," the nurse said, holding up his pager.

"I'm busy," Chase told her, keep a hold on his irritation at the interruption. He didn't even have any patients. The appendectomies had gone smoothly, and he had nothing scheduled for the rest of the day. Nothing. No one should be paging him.

But the nurse shook her head. "It's a 911. Mrs. Van Alsburg?"

Frustrated, Chase looked at Peters, who shrugged.

"Sargetti, take over for Dr. Chase. Chase, I suggest that next time you remember to clear your schedule before you ask to scrub in a surgery," Peters said calmly.

The rebuke only rubbed against Chase's building frustration, and it was with restraint that he handed the sponge over to Sargetti. He stepped back, muttering an apology to the nurse that he'd bumped into, and then turned around, glancing up at the gallery as he did so.

At the front of the crowd of people stood Kutner, one of House's potential fellows.

That explained everything.

Chase stormed out of the OR, ripping his mask off his face, and was entirely unsurprised to find Thirteen standing in the hallway.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "I don't care what House needs me to do—you have no right to fake a page and call me out of an OR. There are two infant girls laying on that table, facing paralysis and possibly death, and I can't believe you'd chance that on House's whim."

Thirteen's face remained impassive. "House isn't here."

Chase could have screamed.

Instead, he was silent for several seconds before he spoke.

"Then why," he ground out, "are you and Kutner?"

"Kutner's here because I told him to stand up in the gallery for a while," Thirteen said dismissively. "I'm here because you told Amber that House could make your life miserable."

Chase stared.

Thirteen smiled. "I can make your life miserable, too. See?"

"Yes," Chase said through gritted teeth. "I see that. What do you want?"

"I want you to protect me."

Chase took in a deep breath and then let it out very, very slowly.

"From House," Thirteen added, as if she needed to elaborate. "He obviously wants nothing to do with you, unlike Cameron. So make him keep me."

"No."

Thirteen tilted her head. "This won't be the end of it."

"You've got nothing on House. Sorry. You didn't even think this plan out—why do you think Amber didn't bother with it?" Chase shook his head.

Looking vaguely confused, Thirteen frowned.

"I _can_ sway House's opinion," Chase said pointedly. "Which is why you don't want to piss me off."

And then, before Thirteen could respond, he turned on his heel and went back into the OR, retying his mask as he went. As he pushed open the door, he saw Sargetti holding the sponge—his sponge—and his frustration doubled. He narrowed his eyes at Kutner, who was still standing up in the gallery.

Kutner grinned widely and gave him a thumbs-up.

"So good of you to rejoin us, Chase," Peters said dryly as Chase came up to the table. "Everything okay with Mrs. Van Alten?"

"Yes," Chase answered, not bothering to tell him that the name had actually been Van Alsburg.

Peters' mask twitched, indicating that he was smiling. "I'm glad. Why don't you stand in the back, behind Nurse Kelsey?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Worlds Away From Who I Was**

**Chapter 3**

The surgery did not go well.

Natalie lived.

Zoe did not.

Chase had dutifully stood in the back until Zoe had started crashing, and then he had been thrust to the front to help try to staunch the bleeding, but there was nothing that they could do but save Natalie. After Zoe died, the only thing they could really do was cut the dead infant away from the living one and do some reconstruction work on Natalie's back. Chase was given the dead body to carry away from the table, and he placed her on a white towel. When he looked up to the viewing gallery, Kutner had left.

At the end of surgery, despite having one healthy baby, Chase was heavy-hearted as he left the OR. As much as he'd hated taking a backseat to everyone else for half the surgery, he was glad that the responsibility of telling the parents didn't fall on him.

After changing out of his blood-spattered scrubs, Chase glanced at his watch and realized that he still had time to catch Cameron before she left with her friends.

He found her suturing a teenager's arm.

"How'd the surgery go?" Cameron asked when she saw him.

Wondering if it wasn't supremely obvious by his slumped shoulders and downcast expression, Chase shook his head slightly.

Cameron winced, sympathy flooding her face. "Oh, I'm so—"

Chase waved a hand. "It doesn't matter."

Cameron stopped mid-sentence, looking surprised.

"I just..." Chase exhaled.

"Did you want to come with us tonight?" Cameron asked him hesitantly.

"No," Chase said, shaking his head.

"Well..." Cameron seemed to be searching for a polite way to ask him what the hell he wanted then.

Truthfully, Chase didn't know what he wanted. He'd thought that he'd had a purpose coming here, but now that he was here, he wasn't quite sure what it was. Maybe he'd thought that seeing her would cheer him up? But then why had he just turned away her sympathy?

"Never mind," he told her at last. "I'm just going to go home and go to bed. See you tomorrow."

Cameron looked as though she was trying to figure out what she'd missed, but nodded. "Yeah. Sure."

Chase left.

oOo

The alarm was going off.

Chase felt his eyes burning into the back of his head. The beeping made him feel like someone was beating a sledgehammer onto his head, and for a moment, he thought that he might be sick with pain. When he opened his eyes, bright sunlight stabbed at his corneas, and he quickly reached over and slammed his hand around to find the off button. He couldn't find it. Why hadn't he shut the damn off the night before—God, what time was it? How much time had he missed in this dream?

Dream. He was dreaming again, and he still had that bloody headache.

The alarm was still going off, his fingers unable to find anything that would stop it.

Chase grasped the whole thing with his hand and yanked as hard as he could, pulling it away and flinging it across the room.

Silence.

Without the buzzing, the headache died down considerably, and without the explosions of pain in his head, the nausea all but disappeared. He let out a breath of relief. This was considerably better than last night, although it was still awful enough that he didn't feel like doing anything but laying in bed and maybe, with a little luck, dying.

He opened his eyes again, wincing in the sunlight.

The hospital. He had to get there. If not to work, then so that he could get some medication for this headache. Even if it was just a dream, he didn't seem to be able to change it to something less painful and it was his dream, dammit, and he was not going to spend it suffering. Besides, it was just a dream. This wasn't really hurting him, and it couldn't really kill him. It was all in his head. All he had to do was get to the hospital and get some drugs, and it would end.

And with that in mind, Chase was able to pull himself out of bed and stumble downstairs. The drive to the hospital was better than he'd expected it to be, because despite all the noise and bright lights and motion, as he drove, his headache faded away a little. By the time he rolled into the hospital parking lot, it had halved. He was still struggling to see anything, and the motion of getting up out of his car made his stomach heave threateningly, but he no longer felt like dying.

Actually, he felt increasingly hollow as he walked into the building. The headache stabbed at his brain, making him wince and grimace at odd intervals—people in the hallways must have thought him insane, or possibly a sufferer of Tourette's—but it was lessening with every step. And as the pain diminished, he was left with a lightheaded, not quite nauseous feeling.

He became abruptly aware of the fact that he was still in the jeans and t-shirt that he'd worn yesterday, the ones that he'd worn all night, as he boarded the elevator.

Oh well. It wasn't like House could fire him.

As the elevator ascended, Chase felt increasingly better. Well, the nausea didn't go away, but his headache was headed in that direction.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. His head still pounded, but it was nothing—_nothing—_like what he'd experienced last night. The idea of being in a state like that again made him cringe, almost against his will. Dream or not, he didn't ever want to experience something like that again. It had been like his skull was being slowly ripped apart at the sutures.

The elevator dinged, and Chase opened his eyes to find himself staring down the familiar hallway.

He stepped off and as he looked around, his head spun a little. The pain was going away, but this empty, dizzy feeling was quickly taking its place.

Chase ignored it and moved forward, counting the doors until he finally made it to House's office. He stopped outside the door, checking to make sure that Wilson wasn't in there.

He was—but so was House.

Chase pulled the door open, and as he did, he felt the last vestiges of his headache disappear.

It was gone. Completely, entirely, utterly gone.

Gone.

"Ah," House said, looking up. "So good of you to join us. I see you've decided to blatantly disregard the dress code. Excellent."

Feeling dazed by the complete lack of pain in his head, Chase could only nod his head faintly.

Wilson stood up, shaking his head. "You two have fun. Don't kill him, Dr. Chase."

And then he disappeared onto House's balcony, leaving the two of them alone to sort themselves out. Of course.

"I called you last night," House said when Wilson had shut the door behind him.

Chase swallowed. "I was sick."

"Normally, I'd say you were lying," House said, giving him an appraising look, "but frankly, you look like shit. I'll believe you. How much sleep did you get last night?"

There was a beat of silence in which Chase stared at House with raised eyebrows. When House didn't say anything more, Chase's eyes narrowed.

"Why do you suddenly care?" he asked suspiciously.

House shrugged. "It's a dream, isn't it? Just as long as you don't start thinking that I care about you in real life, we're cool."

Well, _that_ sounded a lot more like the House that he knew and lo—

Er.

Knew.

"Answer the question," House demanded, suddenly irritable. "You're swaying on your feet."

"Uh—none," Chase answered, the answer coming to him as he realized it. Of course he hadn't gotten any sleep—he'd been too preoccupied with his headache. Also, come to think of it, he hadn't eaten or drank anything since yesterday morning's coffee. That, at least, accounted for the feelings of lightheadedness and dizziness. "I think I should eat something."

House did not look impressed. "When was the last time you _ate_?"

Chase shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

House scowled. "No wonder I fired you," he said sourly. "You can't even keep track of your own health, let alone someone else's."

Ignoring him, Chase turned around to go buy something from the vending machine. Nothing sugary, because his blood sugar would crash and then he'd be in real trouble, but what the hell did vending machines have without a lot of sugar? Peanuts, he supposed. He'd just have to make do with something small until he had the time to go down to the cafeteria and get some soup.

He stepped out the door and he took in a sharp breath as, out of nowhere, his headache returned.

He took a few more steps, but with each one, the headache felt progressively worse and by the time he made it out into the hallway, he was quite certain that he was going to throw up. His head spun and his stomach lurched.

Which meant that vending machines were a bad idea.

Chase turned around, pulling open the door to House's office to dive for his garbage can, but he took four steps in and then stopped in his tracks.

The nausea was gone. So was the headache.

What?

"What the hell are you doing?" House snapped, breaking Chase's momentary confusion.

"I—" Chase stopped. "Wait a minute."

He turned around and stepped towards the door and by the time his fingertips were pushing against the glass his headache was returning. Taking in a deep breath, he turned around and walked back to House, feeling the headache disappear.

This was absurd. He couldn't be sick based on how close he was to House—it didn't even make sense. Nowhere, in all the strange cases he'd seen working for House, had he ever encountered or even thought of a disease like this. But it would explain the headache when he'd went to his interview, then why he'd been sick all night—House must have been at the hospital this morning when he'd woken up, which would be why he'd felt a little better after shutting off the alarm. Bloody hell.

"Are you lost?" House asked him, clearly impatient for him to leave.

Chase suddenly realized, with a small degree of horror, that this also meant that unless he was near House at all times, he was going to be sick as a dog.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered, walking over to the couch and sitting down.

This was bad. Oh, this was really bad.

"Don't be stupid," House snapped, sitting up in his chair. "You need to eat something. You can't have sex on an empty stomach."

"I'm not having sex with you," Chase mumbled, saying the words for probably the thousandth time, but there was no conviction behind them this time. He'd have to follow House _everywhere_. How was he going to sleep? How was he going to go to the bathroom? Every time he left House, it seemed to get worse. By tonight, he'd probably be having seizures whenever he was away from House. How far away could he get before he started feeling sick, anyway?

He glanced at House. There was probably three meters between them right now, and he felt fine. But when he'd been at the door—only a few steps away from where he was sitting right now—the headache had started forming.

His stomach suddenly growled, making his recent declaration of not being hungry completely moot.

"Don't tell me you're anorexic now," House said, reaching for his cane. "Because let me tell you, I am _not_ going to spend this dream trying to convince you that your figure is already svelte—"

"I'm not anorexic," Chase mumbled.

"Then eat."

Chase hesitated.

It was just a dream, right?

"Walk with me to the vending machines," Chase said, looking up at House, "and I'll eat."

"Reason?" House prompted.

"Nobody believe that you actually hired me." Chase was completely making this up off the top of his head. "I want them to see that you really do have an employee now. You know, to save me from reaching for my ID every time I try to get anything done around here."

"You're aware that this is just a dream, right?" House asked, looking doubtful.

Chase shrugged. "Yeah, well, it doesn't seem to be ending any time soon, does it?"

House looked contemplative for a moment, and then shrugged one shoulder. "Fair enough. Let's go."

Relieved, Chase rose from his seat and followed House as he walked out the door.

oOo

"So what were you so sick with that you couldn't pick up the phone?" House asked as Chase opened the little bag of pretzels he'd just bought.

"Headache," Chase responded. He popped a pretzel into his mouth and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that it was rather stale and unsalted.

"That's it?" House said in disbelief. "A headache? Holy crap, you're pathetic."

Chase chewed on his pretzels instead of informing House that it had been a twenty-hour headache that had rivaled a migraine. It didn't really make a difference—it wasn't like House would take him seriously. He had to think about how he was going to survive the rest of the day. The idea of that headache coming back made him shiver involuntarily.

"What are we doing today?" he asked, hoping beyond all reason that House wasn't planning on taking a case.

Of course, House never took cases unless coerced—and as far as Chase remembered, House hadn't taken on a case until nearly a month after he'd been hired. All he'd done on most days was read the paper, surf the internet, and occasionally wander off to help out in other departments of the hospital. But if that was all he did today, it would be a pretty boring dream—

"You're kidding, right?" House asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Chase turned to look at him in surprise.

"You're sleeping," House said, as if it should have been obvious. "You can't even focus enough to have a conversation right now. Next time you're sick, take some goddamn NyQuil."

"I can't take up an on-call room for that long," Chase blurted out. Actually, his more pressing concern was that as soon as he left House's presence, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep. He had to find a way to sleep near House. Conference room? Wilson's office?

"Repeat after me: fuck off." House pointed down the hallway. "To be used at your own discretion. Now go."

"I don't need to sleep!" Chase protested, desperate to stay with House. "This is just a dream."

House turned around and started walking away, leaving Chase to stand in the middle of the hallway.

Chase watched him leave, wondering what he was supposed to do. He glanced around at the people passing by, and then looked down the hallway to where he knew the break room was. There was a couch in there. Maybe it wouldn't be too far from House's office—after all, he could deal with a small headache. He could sleep with that.

As his head began to pound, Chase quickly took refuge in a nearby break room.

Headache.

Colors flashed before his eyes.

The world tilted, and his stomach twisted.

He curled up as tightly as he could, pressing the heels of his hands into his closed eyes. He just wanted it to end.

oOo

Twenty minutes later, exhausted and barely conscious, Chase stumbled into the conference room. He glanced over and saw House sitting at his desk, feet propped up, clearly sound asleep. Dizzily, he sat down on the floor, leaning up against the glass wall and closing his eyes. On the other side was House's couch. He wouldn't be able to see him. He'd be safe.

He fell asleep instantly.

oOo

Cameron greeted him with a bright smile when he found her in the ER at noon, just before his shift started. He raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"You look extraordinarily non-hungover," he decided, taking in her appearance as she came to a stop in front of him.

She frowned. "I can go drinking without getting wasted. I'm not a drunk."

Chase opened his mouth to make a smart remark, but upon reflection, there had definitely been more annoyance than humor in her tone. He shut his mouth and tried to find something else to say, but with the jokes suddenly a non-option, the only thing left on the list was an apology for assuming that Cameron was an out-of-control drunkard.

Thankfully, Cameron didn't wait for him to say anything and jumped onto the next pressing matter.

"House is here today," she informed him, tucking a loose strand of blond hair behind one ear. "He and his ridiculous team. Milling around, not doing anything, as usual."

Chase almost told her that he'd seen Thirteen and Kutner in the hospital yesterday but at the last second, had a better idea.

"Well, what are they supposed to do?" he pointed out, shrugging. "If they're not running from the whip, they're licking their wounds. You remember how it was the first few weeks, don't you?"

Cameron winced.

"Exactly."

Actually, Chase's first few weeks had been rather boring. House's insults had barely fazed him, and he hadn't minded the mind games and the eccentric methods of doing things. But Cameron _had _minded, and that was what he was drawing on right now.

"It really is a shame," he commented wistfully. "House is being nastier than usual, just to weed them out. The only ones left are going to be inhuman."

Cameron looked thoughtful. "Maybe. But hey—at least you and I made it out before that happened, right?"

"You're not counting Foreman?" Chase asked, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards.

Cameron looked at him like he was crazy. "No."

Chase knew perfectly well that she still held a firm grudge against Foreman for stealing her paper. The subject was still sore with her, and he'd learned to keep his exasperation to himself.

"Lunch?" Cameron asked him.

"Can't," Chase said, shaking his head. "I've got to get into prep, and then I'm absolutely slammed until late tonight. Maybe if I'm still conscious tomorrow morning, we could do breakfast?"

"We could try that diner on the corner, by my apartment," Cameron suggested, after thinking for a moment.

"I was actually thinking the cafeteria..."

Cameron got her are-you-kidding-me-right-now-Robert-Chase expression on her face. "The _cafeteria?_"

Chase shrugged. "Or the diner. S'fine."

She smiled, stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, and then she was off.

oOo

Chase hadn't been entirely truthful with Cameron. He actually wasn't on until one, but he had come early in order to check on Natalie and her family. Actually, he was there so that Peters would _see_ that he gave two shits about the surgery, hopefully nudging himself back towards the good side of Peters' list of residents. If he ever wanted to see the inside of an OR for another surgery like that, he'd have to, thanks to Thirteen and Kutner.

He did miss the complete and utter lack of office politics up in Diagnostics. Under House, you were always in the doghouse. Always. You came to work assuming that he would abuse you and turn you into his scut monkey for the duration of your shift, and if he didn't, then it was a lucky and rare day in your life and you should probably go play the lottery.

In surgery, on the other hand, being paged during the middle of a surgery could cast your status into the throes of doubt for days—weeks, even.

Natalie was doing fine, knowing only that her back was a bit lighter, not that she'd just lost her identical twin sister, and certainly not that Zoe's life had been sacrificed to save her own. She twisted and gurgled in her incubator, rebounding quickly, and she nearly exploded with happiness when she saw Chase. Her legs flailed around in the air (her arms moved, too, but with jerky, awkward motions that would hopefully fade as the nerves continued to synapse) and she let out several loud, nonsensical noises.

Offering her a wan smile, Chase put his hand through the side and rested it gently on her little stomach. With his free hand, he grabbed her chart from the end of the incubator and laid it flat on the top of the machine. He flipped to the second page and read over the notes that the last nurse had left.

Her parents hadn't been in to see her. They were probably stricken by the loss of Zoe.

Beyond the lack of visits from her parents, though, Natalie was in excellent health. Her oxygen saturation had sunk a little early this morning, but after a few hours of help from a ventilator, it had bounced back up. Her arms were functioning, although time would be the only way to see how much function she gained from them.

Satisfied with this, Chase withdrew his hand and pulled a pen out of his pocket. He scribbled down a few notes and initialed them, certifying that he had indeed been here to check up on the baby when he hadn't been on shift and he hadn't been asked to, and put the chart back.

"Later, squirt," he muttered, and then he left.

Surgery was full of temperamental people whose moods could change on the turn of a dime. You had to be constantly on your toes, scoring brownie points wherever you could and shoving your mistakes out of sight. It was all one big game.

When Chase got back to his locker and discovered that the lock had been changed, he decided that someone must have mentioned this to Thirteen.

oOo

Three years of working for House hadn't been for nothing, though, and Chase had the lock off in five minutes. After he'd changed into his scrubs, he headed over to the board to double-check his schedule for the day—it turned out that he _was_ in the doghouse, as he saw that his five o'clock hand re-construction surgery had been replaced with yet another appendectomy, and two tonsillectomies. This was pretty much a reflection on the rest of his day: mindless routine surgeries, and with the exception of the tonsillectomies, Chase was willing to bet that all of his patients today had come straight from geriatrics

White it was true that most of the people who had surgery were old, it was also true that most of the interns were given the old people so that when they messed up there was less chance of a lawsuit. Chase was not an intern and wouldn't mess up. But he was nevertheless stuck with their surgeries.

Intern surgeries made for very long days.

Eleven hours later, Chase got his first legitimate break. His last surgery—a gastric bypass that he'd managed to worm his way into with a bit of help from Sargetti, whose incredible sponging technique Peters wouldn't shut up about—had sucked up his final energy reserves. Four hours was a relatively short amount of time for a surgery, yes, but after seven hours of other surgeries with no break to speak of, a four hour surgery became a hell of a lot more trying.

Chase stumbled off to the nearest on call room as soon as he'd finished scrubbing out.

It turned out that Ricky, the intern who had been on newscaster duty yesterday morning, was also on-call tonight and had already claimed the bottom bunk. He stirred when Chase came in, lifting his head and blinking groggily.

"Wassa?" he croaked, obviously trying and failing to figure out what was going on.

"Go back to sleep," Chase mumbled, reaching for the nearest bedpost.

"Dr. Chase?" Ricky mumbled, sounding very confused now. "Whyere?"

"I'm on call." _Stupid_, Chase left out with considerable effort as he climbed up to the top bunk. "Sleep while you can."

"Wait—no, your family," Ricky protested, sound more awake now.

Chase flopped down on the bed. "My family's dead."

"No, she said that you had a family emergency," Ricky insisted, now sounding very awake and very certain of himself. "I'm on-call for you tonight. man."

Chase blinked a few times.

"She?"

"Thirteen," Ricky said, as if it should have been obvious. "She said that you'd had a family emergency and couldn't work tonight. I tried to find you, but you weren't in OR 3 like you were supposed to be. No one knew where you were, so I just assumed—"

"I traded off for a gastric bypass in OR 7," Chase sighed.

"Oh."

Chase reached up and scrubbed his face with his hand. "Go home. Thirteen was mistaken—I'm sorry."

And then, not really caring anymore, he sunk down into the blissful oblivion of sleep.

oOo

Chase woke up to the sound of AC/DC.

"_She kept her motor clean, she was the best damn woman that I'd ever seen..._"

He opened his eyes and found himself sitting on the floor of the conference room, and his first thought was that he'd started sleep walking again—something that he hadn't done in nearly twenty years—but his second was that he was dreaming. Again.

A glance down at his clothes confirmed this.

His third thought was that he was exhausted, and it was his last before he slipped back under the darkness.

oOo

Light flooded the room, and Chase blearily opened his eyes. The wall in front of him was lit up, and it was coming from somewhere above—he groaned and shut his eyes.

He was in the on call room. He wasn't dreaming anymore.

"Sorry," a voice whispered, and the lights went off.

Chase rolled onto his side and drifted off again.

oOo

"Excuse me?"

Chase opened his eyes, blinking around at the conference room. His head spun, the light was stabbing at his eyes, and his butt really hurt. He was sitting on the ground. Of course his butt hurt. How long had he been sleeping here, leaned up against the glass?

"Excuse me?"

Chase turned his head and found a woman standing in the doorway, chewing on her bottom lip nervously.

"Sorry," he muttered, swallowing. "Can I help you?"

"I'm supposed to give these to Dr. House," she said, thrusting a handful of files at him. "He's locked his door."

Chase glanced behind him, but the couch on the other side of the glass prevented him from seeing what House was up to. Whatever it was, he was still in his office, because Chase wasn't feeling sick. Looking back at the woman, he accepted the files with one hand.

She gave him a half-smile. "Sorry. You can go back to sleep, then."

"G'night," Chase mumbled, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.

oOo

Sharp, stabbing pain pulled him out of sleep.

Chase didn't open his eyes because he was afraid that it would hurt too much, but he swallowed uneasily and felt a rise of nausea in his throat. He had a horrible headache. God, there was no way that he could be on-call with this sledgehammer pounding on his head. The sound of his pager would probably make him throw up, and the thought of the bright lights of the OR kind of made him want to die.

He moved one hand cautiously, only to feel cool glass instead of starched sheets and metal bed poles.

Was he still dreaming?

Bracing himself, Chase cracked his eyes open and found himself looking around the conference room from his spot on the floor. Yes, he was still dreaming.

House must have left his office.

Holding his breath in some hope that it would keep the nausea at bay, Chase pushed himself away from the wall and stood up on shaky feet. He took a staggering step in the vague direction of House's office, and the pain lessened. House had gone that way—maybe into Wilson's office? He didn't know. He didn't really care, either. All he knew was that when he pushed open the door to House's office, every step he took was a step away from his headache and the nausea and the dizziness.

By the time he got to House's desk, it had faded almost completely.

Exhausted, Chase collapsed against the wall (the one that doubled as Wilson's wall) and sank to the floor. His eyes fluttered shut and he was pulled down, down, down into unconsciousness.

oOo

A shrill beeping woke him up.

He sat up in bed and groped blindly for his pager, completely uncoordinated from sleep. His fingers moved along the waistband of his scrubs, searching for where his pager had been clipped, but when he couldn't find it he started pawing around the sheets. He couldn't have lost it. It was going off from somewhere—and it had better not belong to the person on the bunk below him. Some stupid intern who happened to be a heavy sleeper...

Chase might just kill them with his own bare hands. Goddammit, he just wanted to sleep.

But then his hand closed around something plastic and vibrating, and he quickly shut it off and read the message.

Ten car pile up. ER needed emergency surgeries eight ways to Sunday.

God fucking dammit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Worlds Away From Who I Was**

**Chapter 4**

Someone was poking him in the side. He groaned, reaching up blindly to swat the thing away.

Then it bounced off of his head, somewhat painfully, and he struggled to get his eyes open.

"Cut it out!" he mumbled indignantly, blinking in the bright light and struggling to see.

And then his eyes focused and he realized that he was staring up at House, from the floor, where he was presently curled up in the corner between the wall and House's desk. Shit. Shit, this was not good. He was dreaming again, and the plan had been to wake up before House had returned from Wilson's office, but he'd obviously failed at that. House had found him.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," House greeted, and he lifted his cane to hit Chase on the head again.

Chase reached for the cane, intending to yank it out of House's hands and hit him back, but House was too quick for him. He glared.

"So," House said, apparently oblivious to the dirty look he was receiving, "you didn't get kicked out of the break room, and the on-call rooms on this floor are almost never in use. The conference room is unlocked. There's a chair _right there,_ very comfortable and without a single whoopee cushion in it."

Chase ran a hand through his hair, exhaled, and then gripped the desk and made to pull himself into a standing position, but House whacked him on the head again.

"So why are you sleeping on the floor of my office?" House asked. He was staring down, his eyes roving over Chase's face and then down to his clothes, as if the answer would be on a little sign that Chase had taped to his body.

"I have attachment issues," Chase told him shortly. "Your desk smells like you. It helps me sleep."

House lifted his cane, no doubt to hit Chase on the head again, but Chase swiped his hand through the air and House was forced to draw it back. He frowned at Chase. "I liked you better when you didn't have a spine. Down, boy."

"Yeah, I know you did," Chase snapped, scowling at him. "It was the only way that I'd sleep with you."

House double over, clutching his side as though he'd just been stabbed and staggering backwards slightly. "Oh! Oh, that hurt. Not so close to the heart, Chase!"

Chase took the opportunity to stand up, using the desk to pull himself up. He almost let go, but the moment that his knees locked, a wave of dizziness slammed into him so powerfully that his vision darkened for a few seconds. He really needed to eat something. Or drink something.

"I think you really do have attachment issues," House said, his voice anchoring Chase back to reality.

Chase blinked and swallowed. "Yeah, that's me. Mr. Touchy-Feely."

"And now you're deflecting."

"You would know," Chase shot back.

House rolled eyes, and then turned around and began limping around to the other side of his desk. "Real clever. Is this why you wouldn't—and won't—have sex with me? Because I remind you too much of Daddy?" He paused. "Please say no, the idea's really creepy."

"You're a lot like my dad, actually." Chase began ticking points off his fingers. "You're both utterly in love with your careers. You don't have room for anything else. You both push away—"

"Your father chose that life," House pointed out.

"You're not a martyr, House," Chase sighed. "You chose the way you live, too."

House met his eyes, and he was silent for nearly thirty seconds. "If I had something else in my life," he said at last, "I'd make room for it."

There was a moment of suspended silence.

Then Chase rolled his eyes. "That is the most pathetic come-on I've ever heard."

"This is the most pathetic attempt to avoid answering a question I've ever seen."

Chase stared. "House, that was an _awful_ comeback. Didn't even parallel."

House sat down in his chair, sticking out his tongue. "Shut up. Tell me why you were on the floor of my office."

"Guess."

House gave him a level look. "Chase. I know that you're running on empty in the food, water, sleep and brain cell department, but really. Do you think that if I had _any_ idea why my thirty-two year-old fellow would choose to curl up in front of my desk to sleep for a few hours, on the floor, when there are perfectly normal..."

He trailed off, a strange look coming over his face. An idea had clearly just hit him.

Chase was almost afraid to ask.

"You passed out, didn't you?" House accused, his eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"That's it," House suddenly decided, pushing himself out of his chair and grabbing his cane. "Down to the cafeteria we go. Apparently, they need to do a module in self-care during med school—since you oh-so-clearly need it, let me refresh your memory: when you pass out from hunger, it's _bad_."

And then House was pushing him out of the room. Quite literally.

"I can—House, I wasn't—I didn't pass out!" Chase protested as he stumbled forward, unwillingly moving towards the door. "House!"

"C'mon, let's go—we can do this the easy way or the hard way—let's go, let's go, let's go..." House continued to herd him out of the room.

Chase, disgruntled, started walking of his own accord to avoid being pushed. His deliberately increased his pace, knowing when it was just fast enough to be on the borderline of too painful for House to keep up. If the bastard wanted to annoy him then he'd have to do it in pain.

On the other hand, his mind pointed out mildly, this did mean that he could finally eat without having to throw it up moments later because his head was throbbing so fiercely.

"I'm not paying, by the way," House informed him as he caught up, leaning more heavily on his cane as he kept up with Chase's pace.

Chase did not feel a surge of vindictive glee. Not at all.

House continued to keep up, with obvious effort.

"You're aware that I can't actually die of hunger, right?" Chase asked, rather ignoring House's struggle. "It's a dream."

"But you can pass out from hunger," House countered.

"I didn't—"

Chase stopped himself. Maybe it would be better to let House think that he'd passed out from hunger—better than explaining the real reason, in any case.

"Uh-huh," House said dryly. He came to a stop before the elevators, pressing the button with his cane and clearly struggling to look less relieved that they'd stopped than he actually was. "I win."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Right."

oOo

"Let's have sex in the elevator!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like you. Because I'm dating Cameron. Because I'm _hungry_. You can take your pick, I'm not interested."

"It's just a dream—it wouldn't even count."

"Exactly. This is irrelevant to real life, and therefore a waste of my time."

A sigh. "This is the stupidest dream ever."

"Believe me, if I could change it, I would."

"Maybe once we have sex, then it _will_ change."

"Right."

"It's worth a shot, isn't it?"

"Look, I don't get why you're so set on buggering _me_. I know you have no qualms with using hookers, Cameron's been waiting to fall into your bed for years—I've never had any illusions about being a consolation prize—and the whole hospital knows that if you asked her, Cuddy would let you have your way with her. You've got dozens of other options! Why me? Why can't you leave me alone?"

"You don't want to be left alone. And Cuddy wouldn't have sex with me if I was the last man on the planet."

"Bullshit."

"On which count?"

"Both. I'm happy with Cameron, and Cuddy would totally have sex with you. Everyone knows you used to be a thing."

"We've never been a thing."

"House, how daft do you think I am?"

"That's irrelevant—Cuddy and I? Never happened."

A snort.

"Believe it, buster."

"Can you push the emergency stop back in so that we can eat? I did, apparently, just pass out from hunger a few hours ago..."

"You know what I think?"

"Push the emergency stop button back in, House."

"I think that if this were in real life, you wouldn't be able to resist me."

"Don't be ridiculous. This is a dream—it's the only reason I'm even _talking_ to you."

"Ah, but you've been talking to me in real life, haven't you?"

"No."

"Have so."

"Have not."

"You will."

"I will _not_. Push the damn button."

"You helped Cutthroat Bitch prove me wrong."

"That doesn't constitute as talking, last I checked."

"But you associated yourself with me when you've been trying to keep your distance. Clearly, some part of you still wants something to do with me."

"Because I was so friendly to you when you confronted me in the hallway, afterward."

"Actions speak louder than words."

"But apparently, you need to have your ears checked, because you don't seem to hearing me—I want nothing to do with you."

A pause.

"Now _that_ was a awful comeback."

"Just push the goddamn button, would you?"

oOo

Chase really hated his subconscious.

oOo

"Morning, runt," Chase mumbled as Natalie again exploded with glee at his arrival. She squirmed in the incubator, her limbs waving wildly and a long string of nonsense bursting from her lips. Chase wished he had half her energy.

He'd hadn't gotten back to the on call room until six in the morning, having managed to foist his surgeries off to a few interns who, by some miracle, hadn't paged him for help once during the three hours in which Chase had slept. But then it had been nine, and he'd had to get up for rounds, because of _course_ it was his day to oversee the interns. By the time they'd made it all the way through the surgical wing, he'd been in serious danger of forgetting where he was and just crawling into the nearest bed, whether it was already occupied or not.

And of course, he couldn't go back to sleep now, because he had to double-check on last night's car crash victims and then start on today's routine geriatric surgeries.

He'd chugged a cup of coffee. And then a second.

Natalie, though, did not know this, and continued to talk about something in her own language.

"Whatever you say," he muttered, sliding his hand into the incubator and stroking the dark, wispy hair that was on its way to covering her head.

He reached for her chart, noting that her parents still had not come to see her. It wasn't his place to talk to them, and it wasn't his place to ask the attending surgeon to talk to them, either (at least, not with his current standing in the surgical department), but he wondered how long they would let her stay here without anyone to look after her. The runt was recovering from surgery, she ought to have someone here with her...

But it wasn't his place.

Chase sighed and looked up to take note of her vitals, when the sound of the doors hissing open made him look over.

Dr. Peters.

He had to restrain himself from doing a victory dance.

"Morning," he greeted, careful to keep his voice courteous.

Peters raised an eyebrow. "Dr. Chase. I thought you were on rounds this morning?"

"Finished," Chase told him, letting his grin break free slightly. "I wanted to come down here to check on her again."

Peters' eyebrow returned to its normal position, and his gaze turned to Natalie. "And how is our little trooper?"

"Better, I think," Chase said. He moved so that Peters would be able to see her better. "Her saturation's way up from yesterday."

"You like kids?" Peters asked, eying Natalie thoughtfully.

Chase fought off the rush of paranoia that assaulted him, and reminded himself that Peters was _not_ in the market for a babysitter. He may have been in the doghouse, but dammit, he hadn't sunk that low.

"I used to work in NICU, when I needed extra money," he told Peters instead, pulling his hand out of the incubator. Natalie said something nonsensical. "And I like working with them, yeah."

Babies didn't talk back. They didn't complain. And in NICU, they usually weren't accompanied by annoying, overbearing families.

Peters made an understanding noise, taking a step forward as his eyes remained on Natalie. "Mm.." he hummed quietly, looking thoughtful.

Suddenly feeling uneasy, Chase hung the chart back up on the incubator.

"I've got to go check in on a few of my patients," he said, excusing himself. "I'll see you later."

"Actually, Dr. Chase..."

Chase stopped and turned around, not daring to hope. "Yes?"

"Would you like to scrub in on a valve repair, on Saturday?" Peters asked.

Chase caught himself before he let his eyes widen in surprise. "Uh—yeah, yeah absolutely! I would love that, thank you."

"I'll let Jack know," Peters said, turning back to Natalie's chart.

Grinning, Chase spun around and headed for the door.

_Score_.

oOo

"Where have you _been?_" Ricky demanded, walking right up to him, arms folded over his chest. "We've been here for forty-five minutes! We have other patients, you know, we don't—"

The girl behind him jabbed him in the side with her elbow.

Ricky glared at her, and hissed something too quickly for Chase to catch.

"I'm sorry," Chase told them through gritted teeth, trying not to take out his anger on them. "Someone switched up their room numbers on the charts at the nurse's station; I was told they were still in ICU."

Bloody Thirteen.

Ricky still didn't look appeased, but that probably also had something to do with last night's mix-up.

"Are you going to present, or are you going to stand there and glare at me?" Chase asked, raising his eyebrows.

Ricky sent him a dark look, but took a step back. "Patient is Anne Fuchesman, age thirty-one, presented with severe lacerations to the abdominal area..."

oOo

Chase was counting his scrub caps—he was fairly certain that one had gone missing, but it might have just been the paranoia talking. Besides, why would Thirteen take one of his scrub caps? It wouldn't make him miserable. Sure, he'd have to pay a whole two dollars for a new one, should his other five be dirty when he was desperately in need of a scrub cap, but he couldn't think of anything that she could _do_ with his scrub cap that would be annoying.

However, he had been sure that he'd had six scrub caps, yesterday.

Oh, well. It didn't really matter whether she had it or not, anyway, and he had to run off to his next appendectomy. God forbid he be late and end up even lower on the food chain that he currently was...

With a sigh, he shut his lock—

"Jesus!"

Cameron smiled at him brightly, holding out a container. "Hey."

Chase's heart rate started to slow down as the shock wore off, and he sighed.

"Scared me," he said, closing his eyes as he accepted the container. "You could have said something instead of standing behind my locker door. S'creepy."

"I brought you lunch," Cameron told him, by way of an excuse.

Opening his eyes, Chase peeled the lid off cautiously. A ham sandwich, a banana and... "Is that clam chowder?"

Cameron nodded, grinning at him. "Am I forgiven?"

"I'd forgive you if you'd wrecked my car, right now," Chase breathed, drawing in the heavenly scent one last time before closing the lid. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead, but didn't pull his lips back. "You're the best," he murmured against her forehead.

"Eugh, slobber," Cameron giggled, ducking away and wiping at her forehead.

Smirking, Chase spun the dial of his lock, just a precaution. "Walk with me to the OR?"

"Sure." Cameron eyed his lock. "Isn't your lock blue?"

"It broke," Chase lied. "Had to get a new one."

Cameron looked at it thoughtfully. "Huh."

"C'mon," Chase said, gently pushing her forward. "Help me finish this, I've got surgery in fifteen minutes."

"I just had an apple," Cameron said. She flashed him a smile. "My teeth feel all nice and clean."

Chase reached into the container and pulled out the sandwich, stuffing a bite into his mouth.

Cameron's expression said that she rather disagreed with him on what was a polite amount of food to put into one's mouth, especially while in public, but she quickly put the expression away and moved on, for which Chase was immensely relieved.

"So, you know Cole, right?" she asked, as they moved down the hallway.

Chase frowned, swallowing. "What department does he work in?"

"Diagnostics."

Oh, _great_.

"Don't think so, no," he said lightly, and then took another bite.

"He's one of House's potentials. House has been having a great time with him, because he's Mormon."

Chase snorted. "Good for him. House'll probably keep him around just for shits and giggles."

"He's getting bored with him, actually," Cameron told him. She was frowning vaguely. "Cole doesn't push back."

"So then House will fire him." Chase shrugged and swallowed the last of his sandwich.

"He's an excellent doctor," Cameron countered. "Just because he chooses not to push back over the little things, doesn't mean that he doesn't have a breaking point. Maybe he's just waiting to fight for something that's actually more important."

Chase turned to her, eyebrow raised. "Is this supposed to be a metaphor? I feel like I'm missing something."

Cameron shrugged, her eyes going to the floor. "I might have made a bet with House about Cole."

"I see our agreement to distance ourselves from him is being upheld on both ends," Chase said dryly.

"He's..." Cameron grimaced. "He's a hard man to resist."

"Yeah."

Thoughts of his dreams over the last week caused it to come out almost spitefully, and he winced.

"Well, excuse me," Cameron snapped, stopping and turning to face him, hands on her hips. "I didn't know that I needed your permission to talk to people!"

Chase sighed, scrubbing his face with his hand. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. You want to make bets with House, fine. Whatever."

There was a pause, and Chase didn't need to look up to know that Cameron was biting her lip.

"Look," she said at last, her voice hesitant. "I know what we decided on, but really, I don't think it could hurt to just... I don't want my old job back. No way. But by avoiding him, you're only making it worse."

"Really, it's fine," Chase assured her, lifting his head, but he knew that his tone said otherwise. Dammit, where was the conviction? "Really."

Cameron's expression told him that she didn't believe him.

Chase put a hand on her shoulder. "It's fine. Tell me about this bet you've got going with him."

Cameron eyed him reluctantly for a moment, and then slowly started walking, her stride gaining confidence. "We bet on Cole. If he snaps and pushes back, I win. If he doesn't, House wins."

"I hope you didn't wager his clinic hours," Chase muttered. He slid the banana into his pocket and lifted the cup of soup out of the carton, and then tossed the carton into a garbage can as he passed.

"Money," Cameron said, her voice lightening further. "And if Cole fights back, House doesn't fire him this week. If he doesn't, House is going to let him go."

Chase carefully popped the lid off of the soup. "So you wanted to protect him, and you put money in the deal to make it look like you don't actually care."

"You don't have to make it sound like a bad thing," Cameron said, sounding annoyed. "I just think that Cole is a good doctor. You said it yourself—if House has it his way, the only people that are going to be left on that team are going to be the most heartless, ruthless people he can find. There needs to be someone there with compassion."

"Not saying it's a bad thing," Chase said, shaking his head. "But you know that House is going to see right through you, right?"

"Does it matter?" Cameron asked.

Chase swallowed a spoonful of soup. "Suppose not."

He was thinking of Thirteen, and her desperation to be protected. She clearly should have gone to Cameron instead.

Not that Chase was going to mention this to her.

"Crap!"

Chase glanced over to Cameron, frowning.

"Crap, crap, crap," Cameron muttered, searching through her pockets frantically. "I forgot—crap..."

"Gotta run?" Chase asked.

"Yes." Cameron at last pulled out her pager, pushing buttons frantically. "I'll see you later. Bye!"

And she hurried off. Chase winced as she nearly ran into a gurney, so focused was she on her pager.

He turned and started walking again. The soup was surprisingly still warm, and even more surprisingly, he managed to eat half of it by the time he got to the operating room—and he didn't spill a single drop on his scrubs. He tossed it in the garbage, with only a quick, regretful glance, and then pushed open the doors into the scrub-in room.

Nurse Kelsey was washing her hands in the sink, but she turned to look at him when he entered.

"Afternoon," she said, smiling at him.

"Unfortunately."

Chase joined her at the sink reaching up and pumping soap into his hands, and was about to turn to Kelsey to ask her how her afternoon had been going (because with any luck, it had been better than his), when the doors burst open and he turned to look.

"Dr. Chase."

He eyed her evenly. "Nurse Brenda."

"You've been switched to OR 4," she said tersely. "Emergency exploratory surgery."

Chase frowned. "There's no such thing. Exploratory surgery is just—"

"Thank you, Dr. Chase, I'm well aware of what it is," Nurse Brenda interrupted, glaring at him. "But as I'm sure you know, when it's for Dr. House, it's _always_ an emergency."

Thirteen.

"There's surgeons on call for that," Chase told her with a slight shrug, turning on the water and rubbing his hands together, feeling the soap turn into bubbles between his palms. "I'm not House's personal surgeon."

"And I'm not his messenger boy. Tell him yourself." And with a haughty look on her face, she spun around and left.

Chase stood in front of the sink, staring at the door and listening to the sound of water running. Dammit. He really hoped that Thirteen was in OR 4, because right now, Chase would have liked nothing better than to rip her a new one.

oOo

Thirteen was not in the OR. A man who introduced himself as Cole was, though, and Chase quickly made the connection. He took a liking to Cole as the man brought him up to speed on the latest happenings of their case (because somehow, in the fray of searching for his patients and trying not to lose his temper on the interns, he'd missed the morning report on the Diagnostics department), and not that he would admit it, but the patient was definitely more interesting than the routine appendectomy that he'd been switched out for.

He had her open in no time, and within ten minutes, was poking around her organs.

"Spleen's ripe to bursting," he commented as he gently probed it. "You guys thought this was vasculitis?"

It wasn't fair, and he knew it. Being a surgeon and opening someone up was very much like just opening the shoe box and looking to see what's inside, whereas diagnostics was all about shaking the box, weighing it, smelling it, using everything _but_ opening the box in order to figure what was inside.

It was a metaphor he'd been developing for quite some time, and he was waiting for the occasion when he could finally use it on House.

Not that he was going to be talking to House, except for in his dreams, where it didn't count.

"You used to be on House's team, right?" Cole asked eventually.

Chase nodded. "Yeah. There's a lot of blood here—sponge."

Cole obediently handed him the sponge, and as Chase worked, he waited, knowing that his answer had not at all deterred Cole from his question.

He was impressed at how long Cole lasted.

"You got any advice for me?"

"Nope," Chase said, setting the sponge aside and picking up the probe again.

He was the last person anyone should go to for advice.

"You always put up with this crap?"

"Yep," Chase replied.

There was another pause, and Chase figured that the next question coming was going to be the big one.

"Was it a mistake?" Cole asked, his voice soft.

For an instant, Chase's hands stilled—not because of Cole's question, but because he felt someone's eyes on the back of his neck. House was watching.

"It was irrelevant," he said shortly, using the probe to push back more of the small intestine.

"He fired you," Cole said. Clearly, he hadn't noticed House yet.

Chase shrugged, careful to keep his tone light, now. "He'll fire you either way." And then, remembering Cameron's bet, he added, "Eventually."

"Dr. Cameron told me—"

Did the guy not have eyes?

"Don't wanna know," Chase said quickly, cutting him across.

There was a startled silence.

"Why not?"

"'Cause—" _You unobservant twat_, Chase mentally added. "—House is watching."

He glanced up to grab a clamp, and caught Cole's puzzled expression.

"Not a metaphor." He took the clamp and carefully fitted it around one of the bends of the small intestine. "Look up."

He worked in silence as Cole looked up, and let himself smirk underneath his mask. He wasn't so sure he was rooting for Cole anymore, as much as he liked him as a person. Compassion didn't make up for a lack of awareness.

Then there was the hiss of the intercom, and a second later, House's voice echoed off the walls of the OR.

"You guys gonna shoot the breeze or you gonna do something about all that bleeding?"

Chase rolled his eyes. His clamp was finally in place, confirming what he'd suspected.

"That's not coming from the spleen," he said, raising his voice so House could hear. "It's the liver."

"It's necrotic," Cole added, leaning closer.

Chase nodded to himself, prodding the liver carefully. "She's dying from the inside out."

He looked up at Cole, knowing that this was not at all what they had been looking for. He remembered the feeling all too well—the moment of almost.

"Sorry, mate," he murmured, letting his hands still for a moment.

"How'd you know he was here?" Cole asked him, frowning. "You didn't look up once."

"House sensory system," Chase told him, voice quite serious. "Yours should start developing soon, don't worry."

oOo

In his dream—for after he finished working on House's latest patient, he had taken one glance at the clock, signed out, and then driven home to crawl into bed—things did not pick up right where they left off. It had happened before. The dreams were odd, because sometimes he'd come back and it would be as though he'd only stepped out for a second, but other times, hours had passed. This time, it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, because last time he'd woken up just as House had left to go home from the cafeteria, leaving Chase alone and without any idea what he was going to do.

Twenty minutes, though, had let House get pretty far. His head was positively killing him. Half-blind, he stumbled out of the cafeteria and down the hallway, only dimly wondering why no one noticed his obvious distress and tried to help him—although he couldn't say that he wasn't relieved. Right now, he just needed to get to House. That was all he needed. He had to follow him back to his apartment and do something, anything, to prevent himself from feeling this badly.

He was beginning to sweat, his head throbbing and his stomach churning, as he reached his car. There was a brief moment, when he opened the car door, where he was certain that he was going to throw up, but he pulled it together at the last minute and managed to keep everything down.

He drove. He wasn't sure how he managed this, other than by sheer force of will, and as he drove he could feel his symptoms fading ever so slightly, though not as much as they had on the drive into the hospital this morning, though.

Could they be getting worse? Could it be that the more time he spent with House, the harder it became for him to be away?

"So fucked," he muttered, as he managed what had to be the shittiest parallel parking job ever seen. He could see House's apartment from here, and he was beyond caring about parking. "So, so fucked..."

He opened the door and pulled himself up, and then immediately double over, vomiting on the sidewalk.

Groaning, he staggered forward, feeling a little better with each step. It was still bad. He stumbled all the way down the sidewalk, stomach lurching and threatening to spew its contents again, and he nearly fell over when he found the steps.

One. Two. Three. Four.

Up the stairs.

He was feeling better, which meant that House was somewhere in his apartment, but he still felt _awful_. His limbs trembled, his head pounded, and with the final step, his stomach turned and he threw up again, the force of it making him sway, which made him dizzy, which made his head pound, which made...

Chase nearly fell against the door. Struggling to open his eyes against the bright light next to the door, he pounded awkwardly on the door.

Please let him answer, please let him answer, for fuck's sake, let him answer...

But House did not come.

Chase knocked again, and again, but House didn't come.

It flashed through his mind that perhaps he should circle the outside of the apartment to find the spot closest to where House was, inside, but the idea made his knees buckle and he slid to the ground, half-slumped against the door. Breathing hard, he let his head fall back and his eyes fall shut.

He barely registered the door opening, beyond the feeling of vertigo as the world tilted sideways, and the sudden rush of relief, of no pain and no nausea and no dizziness that came over him when he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and he was swept off to a world of unconsciousness. The last thing he heard was House swearing violently.


	5. Chapter 5

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 5**

Chase woke up rather suddenly. It started off slowly, coming to a calm, peaceful feeling, floating along, but the instant he managed to register this, it was ripped away. Abruptly, his head spiked and his stomach lurched—his brain quickly caught up with this development, and suddenly he was awake and in _pain_. Whimpering, he curled tighter within himself, but then his stomach roiled and protested being crunched, and the pounding in his head intensified. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Chase?" a voice barked.

He winced and struggled to open his eyes. He knew that voice, he knew... He knew who that was.

"Chase, open your eyes. Chase. _Robert_."

The use of his first name startled him, because House never—

"House!" he gasped, his eyes finally managing to crack open enough to make out a fuzzy shape above him. He was lying on the ground. House must have... He must still be dreaming. Which meant that House had discovered him on his doorstep and brought him inside.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit.

"C'mon, let's get you up." House sounded annoyed.

"Fuck you," Chase muttered, attempting to roll on his side and failing. He gritted his teeth against the surge of dizziness that made his head spin and his stomach churn.

"Oh, very nice," House said irritably. "I find you sleeping on my porch like a hobo, drag you inside—which was no small feat, let me tell you, there had better be multiple blowjobs given as payment tonight—and all I get is a fuck you?"

"Yeah. Fuck you." The words were ground out, and he had to quickly clamp his mouth shut, swallowing down on the bile that rose in his throat. Why was he feeling so bad? House was right here, he should be feeling better.

"Listen here, bucko," House snapped, reaching out and grabbing Chase's shoulder roughly. "If you think—"

The loss of pain in his head, the loss of the nausea, the loss of the dizziness—it slammed into Chase like a wave. He slumped, groaning in relief and bringing his cheek down to House's hand before he could stop himself. Gone, gone, gone, it was gone...

"Okay, what the hell are you doing _now_?" House demanded, yanking his hand away.

Chase stifled a groan as the removal of House's hand caused an instant surge of nausea in the pit of his stomach. Dammit—what the hell was wrong with him?

"Chase?"

He clenched his jaw, refusing to admit that it was inevitable. It wasn't. There was—he could still...

"Dammit," he said through gritted teeth.

"Up," House repeated. "I'm old."

Taking in a deep breath, Chase nodded to himself and forced himself to move, bringing his elbows back and pushing himself up.

"Good boy."

Scowling, Chase pushed himself all the way up—at the same time House got out of his crouch and stood up, which turned out to be a bad combination. Chase's stomach lurched horribly.

"Dammit," he swore again, looking around frantically for something he could vomit into, wincing as the pounding in his head disagreed with the light—and then thankfully, spotted a trash can a few feet away.

"You're disgusting," House observed, as Chase retched into said trash can.

"Fuck you," Chase managed to mutter (again), between heaves.

And then, the strangest thing happened.

House touched his back. Gently. Rubbing it slightly.

Which made the nausea vanish instantaneously, and he stopped throwing up immediately. His stomach settled and his headache vanished.

House jerked his hand back, and immediately, the pit of his stomach turned.

"No!" he said, turning around and grabbing House's hand.

House, who had started to rise out of his crouch, stared down at him, expression bewildered.

Chase hated himself. He hated this dream. He hated the fact that holding House's hand right now was the only thing keeping him from feeling like he was dying.

"I know it's crazy," he said, tightening his grip on House's hand and hating, hating, hating this whole situation. "I know. But being near you—when I'm not, I get sick. It's this crazy dream. It's been getting worse, all the time, and now the only time..."

House stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Chase exhaled. "I... feel sick based on my relative distance to you."

"Right."

"Why do you think I haven't been sleeping or eating? Why do you think I was asleep on the floor of your office?"

"So if I let go of your hand right now—"

"No, House—"

But it was too late. House pulled free of Chase's grip and backed up, and Chase made to go after him, but House was too quick and Chase was able to see him get about three steps away before he collapsed. His head exploded and he was gone.

"Symptoms?" House's voice asked, from somewhere far away.

But he was practically choking as his stomach attempted to expel what was no longer in there, curled in on himself, swallowing his tongue, his head a whirlwind of agony, it was impossible to breathe and—breathing, he couldn't breathe—

It was gone.

Too suddenly, the pain faded away, his stomach settled, and a hand rested on his forehead.

Gone.

Utterly spent, he lay on the floor, breathing hard. Sweat trickled down his back, his head reeled, and he was too stunned to feel anything but relief.

"Symptoms?" House asked again, but this time his voice was gentler, his hand not moving from Chase's forehead.

"Headache," he panted. "Nausea. Dizziness. Fever. I hate you."

"What else?"

Chase attempted to get his breathing under control. "It started... when this fucking dream started. That's why I didn't sleep—you were too far away, I had a bad headache. It seems like the more time I spend with you, the harder it is for me to leave." He was beyond caring how this would sound to House. He was so _tired_. "It's to the point where the only way I feel fine is when you're touching me."

There was a pause, and the only thing Chase heard was the sound of their breathing.

"And I'd say that it was impossible," he added, "but hell, it's a dream. I don't even know."

He lay there, breathing hard, waiting for House to say something.

"Seems to me that the fates do want us to have sex," House finally remarked, sounding _unfairly_ smug.

"Oh, fuck you," Chase said wearily, opening his eyes. He really, really hated his subconscious.

"It's true love."

"This is a nightmare."

House snickered. "For you, maybe."

"Look, I'm too tired to argue right now," Chase sighed. He forced himself up into a sitting position and reached up to grasp House's hand, looking up at him. "Can I just—can I sleep? Please?"

"Sure thing, bed's this way!" House said, suddenly perky.

Chase narrowed his eyes. "Sleep, House. No sex. We're not—I'm not doing anything with you. I'm still dating Cameron in real life."

"It's a _dream_," House emphasized, standing up and pulling Chase with him. He grabbed his cane from where it was propped against the wall. "It's not like you have control over what happens."

"Of course I do," Chase said, glaring at him. "I know it's a dream."

"So let go of me," House challenged.

Chase stopped. Of course didn't have control over this situation. If he did, he wouldn't _be_ here, clutching House's hand like an utter ponce.

"See?" House said with a widening grin. "You're not in control."

"That's completely—"

"Are you happy with Cameron?"

"What? Of course."

"Would you ever leave her?"

"_No_. House—"

"Then don't you trust yourself to enjoy this? It's just a dream. As long as it doesn't start affecting anything in real life, it's fine."

"But it would be wrong."

"You really think that she doesn't have dreams about me?"

Chase really wished that House would stop making such good points when he was so tired. It wasn't fair.

"Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"No. Look, obviously, we're here for a reason. Clearly, something in this dream wants you to be near me, and it's not going to stop until you are."

"Perhaps it's a test of temptation?"

"Then let's fail it. Maybe this whole thing will end, then."

Chase closed his eyes and sighed. They had at last reached the bedroom.

"I'll think about it," he said at last, hoping that this would at least get House off of his back. "But for now—House, I'm exhausted. I slept on the floor for most of today. Please, can I just sleep?"

House let out a breath. "All right, all right. And I suppose I'll have to go to bed as well, since you need me to be all touchy-feely?"

"Yeah," he answered, stepping towards the bed. "Suppose so."

"I was busy," House whined.

"Too fucking bad."

He tugged off his shoes and crawled into the bed, unfortunately having to let go of House's hand while he got into bed himself, and this time it was even worse. He hissed a curse as his head exploded with pain and he instantly curled in on himself, something hot twisting in his stomach, sweat breaking out all over his body, his limbs trembling—

"Okay, okay," House's voice came gently, his hands bringing Chase back.

Chase let out a breath of relief, his body relaxing.

"I got you. You're okay, I got you..."

He barely had time to wonder at how _gentle_ House sounded before his exhaustion swept over him, finally pain-free, and he just felt House's arms slide around him as he drifted off, off into sleep, at long last.

oOo

Waking up, Chase felt absolutely no confusion as to where he was. He couldn't be in the real world right now because in the real world, he never woke up in someone else's arms. Sometimes he woke up with Cameron in his arms, but right now he knew that he was sleeping in his bed alone, and that meant that he was still dreaming, which meant that he was waking up with House.

This deduction did not freak him out as much as it should have.

House's words from last night echoed in his mind, but instead of being riddled with holes and problems in the morning light, they seemed to have solidified. They made sense. What was wrong with dreaming? As long as his feelings for Cameron didn't change, which they wouldn't, everything would be fine. And the alternative was to spend the rest of these dreams arguing with House and reliving the first three months of his employment in utter boredom, until Cameron showed up.

It wasn't as if the House in real life would ever know that his ex-employee was still fantasizing about him. No one would know.

So what the hell?

He rolled over, careful not to break contact with House (because this did _not_ need to be ruined by his stupid attachment issue) and after a breath of hesitation he dipped his head and let his lips seal over House's, his hair falling forward. He shifted, putting more of his weight on House, putting more energy into the kiss, pushing his tongue forward until he started to feel a response. House's mouth opened and his hands, clumsy with sleep, awkwardly gripped at Chase, one at his hip and the other at his face, pushing hair back, and the kiss deepened. Then House woke up for _real, _and suddenly they connected and maybe it was the dream, but something in Chase burst.

He was gone. A trip of wild, passionate ecstasy that was House's mouth, and he needed more, he needed more like he needed the air he breathed. He lost himself completely, surrendering, his hands in House's hair, on his shoulders, gripping and tugging and loving the small moan that he managed to elicit from House. Jesus. What the hell had he been thinking, denying himself this? This was incredible, it was magic, it was _crack—_

He pulled away, gasping for air.

House stared up at him, blue eyes bright in the morning light.

"Good morning," Chase said, completely out of breath, unable to help the grin that spread over his face.

House studied him, a small grin quirking the corners of his mouth. "I was totally right."

"In your dreams," Chase muttered, leaning down for a quick second kiss.

House smirked at him when they broke apart. "Damn straight."

They stared at each other for almost a full minute before Chase, laughing softly, let himself settle down on top of House so that he was half laying on him, head on his chest.

"It's a good thing this is a dream," Chase mumbled, closing his eyes and feeling utterly at ease. "I can't imagine having to walk around the hospital, constantly attached to you."

House's hand began stroking his hair, and he was quiet.

The fact that this felt so natural, that they had fallen into this so quickly (and without any sex, even), Chase also decided to blame on the fact that it was a dream.

"Missed you." House's voice was quiet, and rumbled from deep within his chest.

Chase made a vague humming noise, lost in the peace of the moment. This was perfect. It was so comfortable and right and—

"This is so gay."

"It's a dream."

"I know. I wouldn't be caught dead like this, in real life."

"That's why I'm with Cameron in real life."

"Okay, new rule: no mentioning your girlfriend in my bed."

"Who, Cameron?"

Chase yelped as House smacked his ass.

oOo

Waking up in the real world was less than pleasant.

He wasn't completely exhausted, but there was a lingering soreness in his limbs, a tiredness that he knew wouldn't go away completely until he got at least a full day off—which was this coming Wednesday, when he had agreed to go sink shopping with Cameron. Followed by dinner, and then an action movie.

With this in mind—and also, the fact that tomorrow he would get to scrub in on a valve repair instead of his routine geriatric, intern surgeries that he'd been doing every afternoon as punishment for stepping out during the separation surgery—Chase drove into work. He stopped in the ER to say hi to Cameron, and then headed down to see how Natalie was doing this morning. She giggled at him again, but as he took down her vitals and initialed the bottom of her chart he noted that her parents still had not been in to see her.

"So it turns out that she wasn't really seeing ghosts," Ricky said behind him, finally at the end of the Daily House Report. "It was just ergot poisoning from untreated rye bread. Also, Cole punched House but House didn't fire him, he fired Henry Dobson. The old guy. No one knows why, because according to earlier reports, House actually liked Dobson, and from what we know about this case, he didn't mess up or anything."

"Great. Thanks for—" Chase paused, Ricky's words having finally caught up with his brain. "Wait, you said that Cole slugged House?"

He turned around to stare at Ricky in surprise.

Rick nodded, grinning. "Yeah, man. House said something about him being Mennonite."

"Mormon," Chase corrected absently.

So Cameron had won her bet with House, then. This meant that she was up a hundred bucks, and it meant that Cole had gotten to keep his job—but what this meant for him, he wasn't sure. He knew one thing: Cameron was going to be in a good mood.

With a sigh, he nodded at Ricky. "Thanks."

Ricky nodded back, and then left Chase alone in the room with Natalie, who had not seen her parents in more than three days now—which just wasn't right.

A nurse passed behind him.

"Excuse me—"

The man stopped, turning to face him. His arms were laden with charts.

"Has she had any visitors since her surgery?" Chase asked.

The man glanced at Natalie. "Not that I know of. It'll say on her chart."

Chase nodded. "Yeah, I know. I'm just—her parents haven't been in to see her in three days. Do you know if anyone's been in contact with them?"

"No, I don't," the man said, sounding a touch irritable. "Look, do you see how many babies we have here? I really wish that I could tell you exactly what's been done to each of them, but I can't. If it's not on the chart, we don't know it. I'm sorry."

Chase sighed. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." The man turned around, striding out of the room.

His gaze went down to Natalie, whose face had started to crumple and turn red. He knew from working in NICU that if the child had no parents, Social Services would be contacted within twenty-four hours, and then _someone_ was there with the runt. This one, though, had nobody. Chase knew that it happened all the time, but NICU hadn't been about long-term recovery. It had been about getting the kid out of the red zone. He hadn't had to deal with situations like this.

It was just that he'd gotten a little too attached to Natalie, and this was why you weren't supposed to do that—then you wasted your time just standing here, staring at her, wondering what would happen to her if her parents never once came to see her in the weeks of rehabilitation that awaited her, if she had to go through that ordeal all by herself...

"Dr. Chase," an icy voice said from behind him.

He knew that voice.

Raising his eyebrows calmly, he slowly turned his head so that he could glance back at her over his shoulder. "Yes?"

Thirteen looked like smoke would start coming out of her nostrils at any moment.

"You protected Cole," she accused, her eyes narrowing.

Chase shrugged, deciding not to let Thirteen know that it had actually been Cameron.

Behind him, Natalie let out a small whimper.

"Why?" she demanded. "What's he got on you? What did he threaten you with?"

"He didn't threaten me," Chase said calmly.

"What did he do _for_ you?" she asked.

"Who says he asked me to protect him?" Chase asked her, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe I just like him better than you."

"I haven't even begun to make your life miserable," Thirteen threatened. "You haven't seen the half of what I can do."

Chase waited patiently, keeping his expression neutral. Behind him, Natalie had started to cry loudly.

She scowled at him, and then her gaze went past him and her eyes narrowed. "Who's that?"

"Patient," Chase said shortly. He had to refrain from threatening Thirteen and letting her know what he'd do if she so much as touched Natalie's incubator. He didn't need her to know that he'd accidentally gotten himself attached, Lord knew what she would do with that information...

"You've been down here with her twice," Thirteen said stubbornly.

"Yes," Chase said, with mock patience. "It's called a post-op check up. Perhaps you've heard of it?"

Thirteen's eyes went to the squalling Natalie, and Chase just barely stopped himself from adjusting his stance to a more defensive, protective one.

He'd gotten entirely too attached. This was ridiculous.

Faking cool indifference, he cleared his throat. "If that's all..."

Thirteen looked back to him, glaring.

"I have other patients to see," Chase told her, sidestepping her and then moving towards the door. "And if I were you, I would go and get some rest. I still haven't decided who I'm going to protect in the next round."

Thirteen looked as though she would have screamed, had she not been surrounded by fifty babies.

oOo

"Look, I just want—"

"There's nothing we can do," the nurse interrupted, quite looking incredulous that he was still here. "I'm _sorry_."

"If she were an adult, we would have required her to have a support system before undergoing the surgery," Chase argued. "It's required by law—we wouldn't have been allowed to do the surgery if there were no one there to help her afterwards. And we're going to let a baby go through it alone?"

She exhaled, looking thoroughly fed up with him. "You wanna get something done? Talk to someone who actually has some say in it."

"I will," Chase said tightly, and then he walked away, jaw clenched.

This was why he hated medicine. This was why working for House had been, in some ways, easier—because House hadn't cared about the rules, and if there had been a baby who needed her parents, he wouldn't have slept until she had them. He would have screamed at the parents, forced them to look at the daughter that was still alive, bribed them and threatened them and hounded them until they started doing what was right by their child. He didn't give a flying fuck about the rules.

But Chase knew that he was not House, and that he couldn't do the same. He would have to go through legal channels, slow as they were, and he would have to—

He stopped walking, staring at the man at the nurse's station.

"Foreman?"

Foreman, who had been speaking heatedly to the nurse, turned at the sound of his name.

"Chase?" His eyebrows raised. "I heard you were working in surgery now."

"I heard you were working at Mercy," Chase replied, keeping his voice friendly. It wasn't as though he and Foreman had parted on bad terms, he had no reason to feel as annoyed as he did at the fact that Foreman was here.

"Yeah, well." Foreman smiled wryly. "Turns out I'm a little too rogue for their tastes."

Chase smirked. "You got blacklisted, same as we all did."

Foreman shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Only place left was here."

"So where are you at?" Chase asked, and once again, he was startled as his first thought was _please not neurosurgery, please not neurosurgery_... It seemed that he'd been enjoying the absence of Foreman more than he'd realized.

"Diagnostics."

Chase stared. "You're kidding. You're in the running with the rest of those gunners?"

Foreman shook his head. "No, I'm... co-head, if you will. Cuddy wants me double-checking House for her, since one of his fellows apparently managed to kill someone because he wasn't watching closely enough."

So he was Cuddy's plant, then. House wasn't going to like that at all.

"You get a raise?" Chase asked.

"Does it matter to you?"

"That's a no, then," Chase said, smirking slightly.

Foreman scowled. "And I expect surgery's paying you at least enough to cover your malpractice insurance? It's had to have tripled, at least."

"Nah," Chase said, shaking his head. "S'not any worse than it was working for House."

Foreman nodded, smiling forcedly. "Congratulations. Cameron's here as well?"

"Yeah," Chase said, nodding. "She's down in the ER."

Foreman's eyebrows shot up. "Oh."

"Yeah." Chase glanced down at his watch. "Right. Well, I've got to get to the OR. I guess I'll be seeing you around."

"You and Cameron still a thing?" Foreman asked, just before Chase turned away.

Chase hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah, we are."

Foreman nodded. "See you."

"See you."

Walking away, he wondered why he'd hesitated. Then he shoved the thoughts out of his mind and focused on Natalie.

oOo

He spent most of the afternoon stewing about Natalie, Foreman, and Thirteen. He stayed far away from thoughts of Cameron and House. No, there was absolutely no need to dwell on those two. Thirteen, he decided, could blow it out her ass for all he cared. Foreman, too. But he wanted some way to emphasize the fact that he didn't _care_ about what happened to either one of them, but he had no idea why, or what he was going to do. He couldn't think of anything that didn't involve associating with House. But as far as Natalie went, he was coming up blank.

He knew that he should just let her be, that she was just a baby and there was a high chance that she would spring back of her own resilience, without her parents at her side, but it just didn't feel right.

Whatever the answer was, it wasn't coming to him, and it left him frustrated. Which was probably the reason that he and Cameron fought, when he finally emerged from his slew of punishment surgeries.

"Hey," Cameron greeted, appearing in the locker room out of nowhere.

Chase managed a smile. "Hey."

Cameron leaned back against the lockers, watching him. "Foreman's back."

"Yeah." Chase slammed his locker shut. "Ran into him. He's Cuddy's plant."

"Good for him." Cameron was smirking.

"What are you doing tonight?" Chase asked, changing the subject.

Cameron brightened. "I'm off. Why? You want to do something?"

Chase shrugged. "I'm on call, so I can't leave, but we could still do something."

"Like what?" Cameron wrinkled her nose. "You think I really want to spend my night off in this place?"

"It's where I'm stuck," Chase said, matter-of-fact. "We may as well make the best of it. It's not like we haven't done it in the on call rooms before."

"You've got to be kidding me."

Chase took in a deep breath, biting down on the immediate anger that flared up at her tone. "Cameron. We've had sex in the janitor's closet, and you're opposed to the on call rooms, now?"

"That was before we were dating," Cameron said, looking extremely indignant that he wasn't on the same page as her. "Ew. Chase, I'm not spending the night here so that we can have harried sex on squeaky, rickety bunk beds, periodically interrupted by your pager. Don't you think I'm worth a little more than that?"

Chase exhaled, putting a hand on his locker. "I'm sorry, okay? I just thought it would be nice to spend some time together, considering that I haven't seen you for more than twenty minutes at a time in the past week. I'm sorry for making an _effort_."

"Are you saying I'm not?" Cameron asked, her voice dangerous.

Chase knew, on some level, that he really didn't want to fight right now. However, he didn't seem to be able to stop himself from speaking.

"All I'm saying," he said tightly, "is that this is the best I can do right now. I'm sorry if it's not good enough for you."

"This is your best?" Cameron asked incredulously.

"Yes!" Chase exploded, slamming his locker shut. "Yes, this is my best. We work in completely different departments, on totally different schedules, and we live on opposite sides of the city, and until one of those things changes, this is as good as it's going to get, okay?"

"So you want me to move in with you?" Cameron asked disbelievingly. "_That's_ your solution?"

"No—hell, that's possibly the worst thing we could do right now—"

"Excuse me?"

Chase abruptly realized what he'd just said, and immediately wished that he could suck the words back in.

"Cameron—"

"I can't believe you!" Cameron threw her hands up in the air. "You're the one who wanted a real relationship out of this, and now you're the one who can't commit to me. The best you can do is a night in the on call rooms!"

"Oh, _I'm_ not ready to commit?" Chase repeated, staring at her in amazement. "Me? You're the one going sink shopping."

"I need a new sink!"

"For your apartment that you clearly have no plans to leave," Chase shot back.

"I _like_ my apartment," Cameron snarled. "Why should I have to leave it?"

"Um, how about the fact that you don't want me there?"

Cameron folded her arms over her chest. "We were just over my place last week."

"And you handed me my toothbrush over breakfast! I'm not going to force myself into places where I'm not wanted."

"It's a toothbrush!"

"Oh, yeah? And where's—"

Chase stopped himself. He stopped, closing his eyes so that he wasn't staring at Cameron's belligerent expression, just waiting for him to finish so that she could retort, and he sighed. "Fine. Go home. We'll talk about this later."

"You're damn right, we will," Cameron snapped, turning on her heel and stalking out.

Chase tipped his head back and stared up at the florescent lights. Beating his head against the lockers would be a _bad_ idea. Very bad. Because...

He paused.

Then again, why would it be bad? He'd knock himself out, get the night off, possibly the following day as well, which he could use to talk to Cameron and make up with her (the sympathy points were a huge plus), and he'd be able to let out his frustration in a satisfying manner as well.

It was rather sad that he was able to come up with so many good reasons to beat his head against the lockers.

It was quite possibly even sadder that the only reason he didn't was because he had a valve replacement tomorrow, and didn't want to miss it.

"I am so pathetic," he mumbled to himself, walking out of the locker rooms. "So, so pathetic."


	6. Chapter 6

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 6**

Chase blinked. "Is it really nighttime?"

House shrugged. "Guess so. Time seems to pass weirdly, here."

Chase blinked again, and then decided that it really didn't matter. They were exactly where they had left off this morning, still in bed, still in the same positions—the room was just dark, now, instead of being aglow with the sunrise.

He settled down on the bed, laying on his side and propping himself up on one elbow so that he was watching House. "All right, then. Your stupid fellow is driving me crazy—Thirteen. She doesn't even have a bloody name."

House snorted. "No kidding. She hasn't left me alone, these last few days. I'm ready to fire her."

"You should."

"What's she bothering you about?" House asked, suddenly curious.

"You," Chase said, shrugging one shoulder. "She thinks I hold some sway with you, for whatever reason."

House snorted. "Well, there's her first mistake."

"Seriously. What's she bothering you about?"

"You."

"Rather obsessive girl, isn't she?" Chase asked, drawing absently on the sheets with his finger.

"She's a good doctor."

"I think," Chase told him, letting his fingers crawl up onto House's chest, "she's interested in getting us together."

House eyed Chase's fingers. "Yeah. I'm sure _that's_ what pops into everyone's minds when they see us."

"Seriously. I'd bet she'd love to appear in this dream right now, watching us together in bed—she'd probably even want to join in." Chase looked up at House, eyebrows raised, fingers poised on his chest.

House made a face. "Rule number two: no mentioning anyone else—except Carmen Electra or Megan Fox—joining us in bed."

Chase laughed softly, letting his arm slip so that he fell down onto the pillows. "Not even Cuddy?"

"Especially not Cuddy," House muttered. Still laying on his back, he poked Chase in the side. "My wombat."

Chase squirmed away. "House!"

"I agree!" House declared, rolling onto his side. "It is _long_ past time we had sex in this dream."

There was a moment of suspended silence, in which House looked at Chase hopefully.

Chase sighed, rolling his eyes. "All right. Fine."

"Hah! Yes! Holy fuck, it's about fucking time! I haven't masturbated this much since I was a teenager..."

"You're disgusting," Chase muttered, forcefully pushing House back down on the bed and climbing on top of him.

House raised an eyebrow, staring up at him. "You remember how this goes?"

"I'm not the one in danger of going senile."

"I'm not the one with the girlfriend."

"No talking about Cameron in your bed, remember?" Chase reminded him with a smirk.

House was quiet for a moment, staring up at him

"No," he agreed at last, reaching up and cupping Chase's chin, smiling faintly. "We're definitely not going to be talking about her."

It was about as tender as things got with House.

"All right, let's get on with it," House said, letting his hand drop and squirming impatiently. "Haven't got all night, gotta wake up some time."

Chase shook his head, rolling his eyes. "God knows why I do this to myself."

They locked eyes, green on blue, and it was silent for a perfect moment.

Then it was gone.

Their mouths met in a familiar warmth and a rush of lust shot straight down into the pit of Chase's stomach, too fast and too sudden. His mind blanked. He knew nothing but that he needed more, every nerve in his body suddenly alight with need.

He forced his tongue into House's mouth and grabbing at the bedsheets, needing more and not knowing how—his stomach muscles clenched and his groin already ached, and then House thrust upwards and Chase _growled_.

"You do it because you're young and horny," House snorted as they broke apart for air.

Chase laughed breathlessly, fine tremors sliding up and down his skin. "Young and stupid, perhaps."

House reached up and pulled his head down, hands threading into Chase's hair as his good leg wrapped around Chase and pulled him closer, tangling their limbs. Their mouths worked, tongues in a fierce battle of dominance. The feeling of House's hands moving through his hair, massaging his head and pulling and tugging, drove him _mad_, and he bit down on House's lip in an attempt to suppress the whimper of pleasure.

It was so good—so good, so good, House's hand tangling in his hair and rubbing at his scalp and pulling it in all the right directions and Chase rocked, trying to get more.

House agreed and matched Chase, but then his hands were gone from Chase's hair and trailed down his chest, sneaking up his shirt, tugging upwards. Chase broke away, sitting up and yanking his shirt off.

He stared down at House panting beneath him.

"Your turn," he muttered, hands going to the hem of House's t-shirt just as House's hands went to his pants. "Hey—no, your turn, I've got my bloody shirt off already!"

"You're hot when you talk all British," House replied, already pulling down the zipper.

Chase wriggled out of the pants impatiently, kicked them off the bed, and pulled House's shirt up in one solid yank. House moved, lifting his arms to help out, and the t-shirt was on the floor moments later. Happier with the state of undress, Chase knelt over House, his knee resting between House's legs.

He kissed House once, twice, and then House left a trail of kisses across his face as Chase moved down to suck on the sensitive spot just above the hollow of his collar bone, and he moved his knee forward gently. House let out a strangled cry and jerked upward, hands clenching on Chase's hips.

Chase smirked, licked, and then bit into the sensitive skin.

House choked.

Chase sucked at the bite mark gently, easing it with his tongue as hands ran desperately through his hair, House's erratic breathing in his ear. Rather considerately, Chase gave the wound a final lick and released, falling on top of House, panting against his neck.

House ran a hand down to the small of Chase's back and beneath the waistband of his boxers to the curve of his ass. "I'm gonna fuck you. I'm gonna fuck you into the mattress, I'm gonna make you _come_ like Cameron can't—"

Chase sucked in a shuddering breath, the words hitting him hard, making him throb. "Jesus," he choked out.

"Fuck yes," House growled, his hand coming up, blunt nails scratching at Chase's back in a way that made him arch into House's hands. "I'll show you Jesus."

Unable to speak, desire tumbling fast in his stomach, Chase ground his hips against House's, coming up for another kiss. God, he needed more, needed to feel more skin, more heat, more—more—

Then like a vacuum cleaner being unplugged, it was gone.

oOo

Chase's pager woke him up. Blinking as he reoriented himself in the real world, he blindly groped for his pager. Finally closing his fingers around it, he brought it up to his face, squinting at the bright light from the LED screen.

_asst peds 231 _

"This had better be good," he growled, pushing himself up out of the bed.

oOo

Okay, so a dying seven-year-old took precedence over dream sex with dream House.

It didn't make Chase feel any less irritated.

oOo

"Wait, wait—House wait," Chase protested, pulling away from House and attempting to look past him. He'd just reappeared in the dream, and House hadn't even appeared to have noticed that he'd gone. Except... "Look. It's five hours later than it just was."

House stopped at that, turning his head to look at the clock. "Huh. Look at that."

Chase's mind was working. House clearly hadn't noticed that he'd woken up, but he'd only been awake for two hours. Why had five hours passed? Did time pass faster when he wasn't here?

"Guess time flies when you're having fun," House said, looking back at Chase with a devilish grin on his face.

"Yeah," Chase agreed, trying to keep the strangeness out of his voice. "Guess so."

House pulled him back down, capturing his mouth and thrusting upward, and the hot tug of desire made the world and it's time-passing improbabilities fade away.

oOo

Chase really, really hated being on call.

Sure, they'd gotten around to having the actual sex this time, but it didn't make the post-coital interruption any less annoying.

oOo

Chase squinted in the bright light.

"How is it noon?" House demanded from behind him. "It was five in the morning, like, two seconds ago."

"It's a dream," Chase reminded him, shifting in House's embrace. "'Course it's fucked up."

"Right."

Chase let his eyes close, settling back into the dream. He wasn't tired, but he felt too utterly content to do much else besides lay here. He hoped these dreams never ended. It made him worry less about losing Cameron, about what would happen if he couldn't make up with her—at least then he'd have this strange dream to go back to.

Which was sad, on some level, but then again he was kind of a pathetic human being. So it was okay. He was allowed to cling to his dreams. He was allowed to pretend that he—

A phone rang.

"What the fuck?" House muttered, and Chase felt him reach over to the end table, and then heard him knock something over, no doubt in his blind search for his cell phone. He must have found it, because a moment later House shifted back, and then growled, "This had better be good."

Chase smirked silently at the parallel to his own earlier words.

House exhaled. "Okay, Wilson? Shut up. This is a dream, I don't actually need to be in to work—and more than that, I just finished having mind-blowing sex with Chase, and you're ruining our gooey, sappy afterglow. Out of the sex dreams. We don't like you like that."

And then Chase heard the snap of the cell phone.

"Uh, House?" he ventured.

There was a clatter as House presumably tossed the cell phone back onto his end table. "Asshole."

"Does that mean that you and Wilson never..." Chase wrinkled his nose. "You know?"

"Chase. I expected more from you. You're really that gullible?"

"It's not about gullibility. Anyone who watches the two of you interact would think there was something going on. At least I wasn't stupid enough to assume that you were still going at it."

"That's the popular rumor," House said dryly.

"Kinda, yeah," Chase replied.

"Morons."

"Definitely."

"I thought I made my heterosexuality pretty obvious, anyway. Why's the world got to go and assume I'm secretly gay?"

Chase frowned. "Uh. House."

House swatted him lightly. "You don't count. You're girly."

Chase sputtered, trying to twist around so that he could face House, but he was locked in tight. "Well—you're a misanthropic bastard!"

"Nancy boy."

"Sadistic jerk."

"Bitch."

"Arse."

"Manwhore."

"Perve."

"Communist."

Chase blinked.

"_What?_"

"You know, communism? The red scare? McCarthyism? Don't tell me that was before your time."

"House, it was before _your_ time."

"Trust me, not growing up with my father."

"Were we talking about your father? Actually, rule number three: no talking about your father in bed."

"You can't make rules in my bed."

"Rule number four: I can make rules in your bed."

"So what happens if I push you out?"

"You wouldn't."

"Ah-ah. I couldn't. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't."

"Rule number five—"

And House kissed him, effectively shutting him up.

oOo

Waking up—for real, not just to run for a page—was an even more miserable task than it usually was, because in addition to being exhausted from a night on call, he also had to contend with the polar opposites of his dream relationship with House (which, frankly, could not have been better) and his real life relationship with Cameron (which was currently in the pits, and not likely to change for a while). It was all rather depressing.

He stepped in line for the cafeteria, nodding in response to the nurse in front of him. He was fairly certain that he knew the man from somewhere. He must have looked completely beat, though, because the man didn't even attempt a conversation. Thank God. Chase wasn't sure how to politely inquire as to how the hell he knew him without sounding rude.

Unfortunately, someone else showed up in line behind him, who didn't have the same courtesy.

"Good morning," Thirteen's cheerful voice greeted him.

Chase looked at her, raising a questioning eyebrow.

She smiled brightly.

"You're supposed to grab a tray," he informed her.

"I'm not getting anything," she replied, shaking her head. Her smile toned down to somewhat normal levels, and now she looked as though she was waiting for a particular moment to bring it out again. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Floor's all yours," Chase said, with the generous sweep of his hand.

"I don't think you'll want anyone else to hear this," Thirteen said sweetly.

Chase sighed, and then put his bagel back (ignoring someone's squawk of "Hey, you can't do that! You touch it, you take it!"). "Fine. Where are we going?"

"This way."

He followed her down the hallway and right back into the on call room that he'd spent most of the night in. She opened the door for him, allowed him to step past her, then shut the door and locked it with a click. She stood in front of the door, rather unsubtly blocking the exit.

"Yes?"

Thirteen smiled. "You and House had a one night stand."

Chase stared. "_What?_"

"You and House had a one night stand," she repeated. "And if you don't protect me, I'm going to tell Cameron."

There was a brief, two-second period in which Chase considered denying having had any relations with House whatsoever.

Yeah, that probably wouldn't get him very far.

"It was four years ago," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "Everyone falls into bed with someone, at some point. Try again."

Thirteen's smile suddenly resembled a smirk. "I'll tell her that you two have kept it going, and that you tried to replace him with her, but she just isn't doing the trick."

Chase opened his mouth to tell her to try again, when he suddenly remembered the argument that he and Cameron had had last night.

Would she believe it? Maybe. Probably not. Chase would like to think that she'd see right through Thirteen's lie—and she might, but if House ever got wind of it, Chase knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd play along with Thirteen. House had, after all, extended subtle invitations to him throughout the last four years. And that would not help things as far as his relationship with Cameron went.

But there was no way he was giving into Thirteen's demands. No way.

On the other hand, he really should prioritize. His relationship with Cameron should be worth more than his personal pride.

But Cameron was smart. She would see through it. She didn't like Thirteen, anyway, and wouldn't have any reason to believe her in the first place.

"Try again," he told her, telling himself that he was doing this as a show of faith in Cameron.

Thirteen's looked incredibly self-satisfied. "Have it your way, then."

oOo

He passed the list over the counter. "That's all of them—odds are current."

The nurse—Chase had named him Kevin, privately, he didn't know his real name—looked up at him in surprise. "Eric Foreman's back?"

Chase nodded. "He's Cuddy's puppet. House is pissed."

"Hm." Kevin thought for a moment, then went for his wallet. "All right. Minimum?"

"A hundred."

"Three on Foreman, two on the Cutthroat Bitch."

"Betting pool?" Nurse Brenda asked, dropping a stack of charts next to the computer. She eyed the sheet dubiously.

"Yeah. Which of House's people is gonna get fired next," Kevin said, nodding at the sheet.

Brenda raised an eyebrow at it, as though waiting for it to burst into song to prove it's own worth, and then she reached under the desk and pulled out her purse. "All right, what's the minimum?"

"Minimum?" a voice said behind him.

Chase glanced behind him to see Ricky coming up to lean over the counter to get a better look at what was going on.

"Are we doing football squares?" he asked, peering over the counter. "I thought the playoffs didn't start until next week?"

"Football squares?" Chase repeated, puzzled.

Brenda handed him two hundred. "Put me down for Kutner."

"It's for House, Ricky," Kevin said, jerking his thumb at the sheet. "Betting pool on who's gonna get fired next."

And then Chase got an idea.

"Ricky."

Ricky glanced at him. "This is your idea?"

"Right. Want to scrub in on a valve repair, today?"

Ricky's eyes widened. "Hell yeah—what do you want?"

Chase grabbed the sheet. "Take this with you on your Daily House Report rounds."

"I don't get a cut?"

Chase raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Ricky scowled. "All right, all right. When's the valve repair?"

"Two." Chase handed him the sheet. "OR 4. If I find out you're pocketing anything, I'm gonna fix it so you're doing Dr. House's clinic hours for a year. Understand?"

Ricky frowned. "Pocket wha—oh! Right. Yeah, I wouldn't do that, man."

Chase was less than reassured, but he handed it over anyway. "And I want it back before that valve replacement."

"Gotcha."

oOo

"Chase!"

Chase stopped, hand on the door to the nursery.

Foreman marched right up to him, jaw set. "I heard about your betting pool."

"And?"

"Why the hell am I in it?" Foreman demanded. "I told you, I'm not in that rat race."

Chase shrugged. "Maybe not, but you know House. He'll find a way to fire you."

"You don't think I can take his heat?" Foreman asked.

Chase smirked. "How much is on you?"

"Half the goddamn pool!"

"Market is what it is, Foreman," he said with a shrug.

"Look," Foreman said, exhaling. "You really think this is easy for me? You think this is going to help me keep my job? I'm having a hard enough time gaining people's respect without you playing games!"

"I have no interest in whether or not you keep your job," Chase told him. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the door. "You want to switch up the odds, you can lay down money on someone else."

"No thank you," Foreman said, his teeth obviously gritted. "Some of us think of others as more than a way to make money."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm a heartless bastard, guess House rubbed off on me. Sorry."

Foreman scowled at him, but stalked off to go annoy someone else, thankfully.

Chase pushed open the door to the nursery, nodding to the nurse on call before heading over to where Natalie's incubator was.

"Shouldn't she be out of this by now?" he asked the nurse.

She shook her head. "No. Her saturation levels have been going down, heart rate hasn't been as strong as the doc wants it."

Chase frowned. "Have her parents been in to see her?"

"Not that I know of, no," she said, shaking her head—a few strands of hair fell from her bun and onto her face, and she brushed them away. There were dark circles under her eyes.

He offered her a smile. "Thank you..."

"Kate."

"Thank you, Kate."

She nodded, and then went back to the baby she had been checking on.

Chase picked up Natalie's chart, flipping to the last page, and read the latest. Kate was right—still no parents. Her oxygen had dipped during the night, and they had given her a small dose of epinephrine in an attempt to get her heart up to a normal rate. It hadn't helped anything. She wasn't doing badly, but she wasn't up to average yet and she should be. She'd been given immune boosters two days ago, there had been no infections at the surgical site, the last CT scan had shown good progress on...

He frowned, and then flipped back a page. Her saturation had gone all the way up to normal, after the CT. The same had happened after yesterday's exam, but not this morning with the blood work. What would cause...

He glanced at Natalie, whose fist was knocking against the plexiglass of the incubator. Her eyes, dark and wide, struggled to focus on him.

All of those procedures involved holding her.

Of course. There had been thousands of studies done about infants needing human contact in order to thrive, miracle cases—but he shouldn't, it wasn't his place...

"Oh, fuck it," he muttered, unlatching the side of the incubator. He slid both of his hands underneath her, careful of the still-fresh surgical site, and then picked her up.

She was incredibly light, and it was lucky that Chase had a firm grip on her because the moment he picked her up she immediately began swinging her arms vigorously, her tiny hands grasping, and her legs jerked awkwardly back and forth. It was almost like a seizure, except for the noise that she let out—loud and piercing, but happy nonetheless. Her heart rate spiked and her blood pressure shot up.

Grinning, Chase held her against his chest, watching as her stats quickly jumped back up to normal levels.

Natalie grabbed at his scrubs, his ID, her head wobbling as she struggled to keep it up, and Chase quickly slid his hand up from her back up to the back of her neck, keeping it steady. She let out a few nonsensical sounds and one of her legs jerked.

"S'that better?" he asked softly, rubbing the back of her head. "Just wanted a little love, didn't you?"

He looked up, suddenly feeling self conscious, but Kate had gone. He was alone.

"Yeah," he muttered, looking back down. "We all want a little love, squirt, trust me."

The monitors continued to show a steady, healthy heart rate, good blood pressure, and her saturation was even starting to crawl upwards. He let her grasp on to one of his fingers, and she struggled for a little while before he finally helped her get it into her mouth. She suckled for a few seconds, and then when she realized that there was no milk coming, her face screwed up and began to darken, and she waved her hands, pushing the finger out of her mouth and making small whimpering noises.

She was building up to a cry, he knew instinctively.

"Not very loud, are you?" Chase remarked, quickly shifting his hold on her so that she was lying on her stomach. "Once your parents get their heads out of their—"

He stopped and looked up.

Ricky poked his head in the door. "Uh. Dr. Chase. The nurse said you were in here."

"And here I am," Chase said dryly. Thankfully, Natalie had become interested enough in her new position that she had stopped whimpering.

"Yeah." Ricky came into the nursery, holding the master sheet for the betting pool and a fat white envelope. "I made rounds. There's—I mean, holy shit, people are really intense about this. It's crazy. You gonna do this every week?"

"Dunno." Chase nodded at the incubator. "Set it there."

Ricky set down the sheet but hesitated with the envelope, staring down at it. "I've never held this much money in my life. People are fucking loaded, here."

Chase snorted. "No they're not. They're just stupid."

Looking a bit wistful, Ricky set the envelope down atop the sheet. He turned his gaze to Natalie. "Who's she?"

"Patient," Chase said shortly.

Ricky eyed her for a moment, but shrugged. "All right. I'll see you at two, Dr. Chase. OR 3. By the way, Dr. Cameron's looking for you."

"Don't tell her where I am, if you would?" Chase asked.

"Uh... Sure."

Ricky looked confused.

Natalie made a distressed sound, and Chase shifted her higher.

"Don't you have rounds to do?" he asked impatiently.

"Right." Ricky scampered toward the door. "Bye!"

Chase sighed as he left, and then glanced at Natalie's monitor, which still showed average stats.

Was he avoiding Cameron? Why, yes. Yes, he was.

oOo

He found out a little bit later just _how_ Thirteen had discovered his and House's little tryst, all those years ago.

"I am so sorry," Wilson said again, shaking his head. "I just—I don't know. I was just waking up, and I didn't even say... Something just came out the wrong way, and she was there and she put everything together before I was even fully awake. I swear, I didn't mean—"

He cut himself off, turning away and bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

"She's been attempting to blackmail me for the past week or so," Chase told him.

"Shit," Wilson muttered, dropping his hand. He turned around to face Chase. "Shit, I am so sorry. Whatever it is she's gotten you to do—"

Chase waved a hand. "Oh, don't worry. I told her I didn't give a shit if she told anyone. I really don't."

"But House—"

"Will either think she's terribly clever, pull her into a closet to tell her to keep her fucking mouth shut, or he'll fire her on the spot," Chase finished easily. "Really, don't worry about it."

He supposed that most of this indifference was coming from the fact that he had yet to see Cameron and find out how she had reacted to this news, and whether or not she had believed Thirteen's story. Whatever. He'd worry about that later.

"In any event," Wilson sighed, "I'm sorry. It was your business."

Chase opened his mouth to say that it was no big deal, but a thought occurred to him.

"Want to make it up to me?" he asked slowly.

Wilson's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"

Chase smiled.

oOo

Ricky arrived outside of OR 3 a few minutes after Chase did, focused on a set of index cards that he'd made into flashcards.

Chase was vaguely amused, but didn't say anything. It was good that Ricky had taken the time to read up on the surgery even if he was going to be at the very back, saying and doing absolutely nothing for the entire time. He smiled faintly, leaning up against the doors to the OR.

"Dr. Chase?"

Chase looked over to see Nurse Brenda standing there, clipboard in hand.

"Yes?" he asked, pushing himself away from the doors a straightening.

"First of all, move one of Lyle's hundreds from Foreman to Kutner—he nearly sent himself into a coma with a defibrillator—and second, you've been switched off this surgery."

Chase blinked. "_What?_"

"You're doing a heart biopsy down in K1439," she said, scribbling something down on her chart. "Sorry."

"Peters put me on this surgery specifically," Chase said, trying and failing to keep the fury out of his voice. "I'm not gonna go and do a goddamn biopsy just because I got a page during a surgery—I'm sick of being punished for something I had absolutely no control over!"

"Excuse me?" Nurse Brenda said coolly. "No one is _punishing_ you."

"Yeah? Then why have I been doing nothing but intern surgeries for the last week?" Chase demanded.

"Because you're on Dr. House's call. There's no point in putting you in big surgeries when he might request you at any moment," she snapped.

"I'm not on Dr. House's call!" Chase said incredulously. "You've got to be joking!"

"I'm not," she said shortly.

"Who the hell told you that?" he asked.

Thirteen. Fucking Thirteen.

"Dr. House himself. He made a hell of a racket about it, too, demanding you as his personal surgeon," Brenda added darkly, glaring at him as though it was his fault.

"Well, tell him to blow it out his ass!" Chase cried, throwing his hands up in the air.

Brenda raised her eyebrows. "Do I _look_ like your personal messenger? Tell him yourself. Right now, though, you've got a biopsy in K1439."

Chase glanced at Ricky, who had been watching with wide eyes, flashcards completely forgotten, and muttered a quick, "Tell Peters I said to let you scrub in," before storming off.

It didn't take him long to find House—and luckily, he was too pissed off to worry about the House in his dreams, and keeping the two separate.

"Dr. Chase, how good to see you looking so cheerful," House said brightly, emerging from the bathroom.

Chase marched right up to him.

"You bastard," he fumed. "I am _not_ your personal surgeon and you have absolutely no right—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" House said, holding up his hands. "Slow down there, tiger."

"I am _not_ your personal surgeon," Chase repeated slowly, furiously. "I don't work for you anymore, House. You fired me. Leave me alone."

House snorted. "Says the man who let it slip this morning that we got it on four years ago. Yeah. Clearly, you want nothing to do with me."

"That was Wilson," Chase snapped. "Not me. I'm not doing your biopsy, that's not even a surgery."

"Oh, but it's a special biopsy," House promised. "Very special."

"No," Chase said flatly. "And take me off your call—I'm not going to be your surgical bitch."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I'm telling you, I won't cooperate. You're wasting your time."

"Of course you'll cooperate," House said dismissively. He paused for a moment, and then turned around to head back into the bathroom.

"Where are you going?" Chase demanded, following him in. "You just _came _from the bathroom."

"Cuddy switched my Vicodin with laxatives," House muttered, pushing open one of the stalls with his cane. "And while we're changing the subject, what are you doing with this betting pool?"

"Entertaining myself."

House's voice floated out from the stall. "It's distracting my employees. Call it off."

"Are you joking?" Chase said incredulously. "Do you have any idea how much money I've got going for that? I would be _mad _to call it off. And moreover, I don't give a shit if your team's distracted. They should learn to how to focus on their work."

House was silent for a moment.

"How much money, exactly?"

Chase's eyes narrowed. "Enough. You want to put down for someone?"

"Not unless there's someone that no one's bet on," House replied.

Chase did a quick mental check. "Nope. Sorry."

"How much money's in the pot?"

Chase told him.

House let out a low whistle.

"Tell you what," he said after another pause. "I'll stop making you my surgical bitch if you give me half the money."

"And how would I do that?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll fire no one this week. It's not one of your options, and it's never happened before so no one could call you a cheat—so you collect on the whole pot, and then you give me half."

"You take me off as your personal surgeon, and you fire Thirteen next week," Chase countered.

"Why the hell would I fire Thirteen?"

"Because she's an idiot," Chase said shortly, not planning on telling House all of the dirty details. "Deal?"

There was _another_ pause, in which House must have done some very fast deliberating.

"Deal."

"Get out here and shake on it."

"I'm pooping!"

Chase scowled. "Poop faster."

"Get in the next stall, we can play battleshits."

"What is—" Chase paused for a moment to consider the name. "Never mind, I don't think I want to know."

"Don't worry, you'd lose anyway," House assured him.

"Great."


	7. Chapter 7

**Worlds Away From Who I Was**

**Chapter 7**

Chase frowned as he entered the scrub in area, seeing Ricky, Peters, and a few other nurses stripping off their gloves, masks off.

"What's up?" he asked, glancing at the clock to make sure that House hadn't somehow made four hours pass in the bathroom, instead of the ten minutes that they had actually been in there. "Surgery canceled?"

"In a way," Peter replied, tossing his gloves into the garbage can. "Kid had a bad reaction to the anesthesia—we tried to save him. He wasn't under two minutes, he started reacting and his heart couldn't take it any longer. Sorry."

The kid was dead.

Chase closed his eyes. His first interesting surgery in a week and the kid had died on the table before they'd even gotten to open him up. Of course. He should be upset that the kid was dead, not that he'd missed his surgery, but dammit, a whole week of doing nothing but appies and he'd been looking forward to doing something _different_. Fucking House.

And of course, it wasn't House's fault, but Chase blamed him anyway. Gritting his teeth, he swore very, very softly.

Ricky's voice cut through the swirling, furious clouds that were gathering in his head.

"You, uh, got any other good surgeries today, Dr. Chase?"

Dammit.

"No," he said shortly. He opened his eyes, letting out a breath. "Sorry. I'll try to get you in on something interesting tomorrow, all right?"

Ricky opened his mouth to argue, but he stopped and seemed to reconsider. "Yeah. Sure. Thanks."

Chase nodded.

Ricky left, leaving Chase alone with Peters.

Chase took in a deep breath. Okay. So he'd lost the surgery. At least he now knew that he wasn't as far into the doghouse as he thought he'd been—he'd probably start getting more interesting surgeries once word got around that he was no longer House's bitch, and assuming that Thirteen didn't do anything more to fuck up his standing in the department, he'd bounce right back to where he'd been within a couple of days.

All right. This wasn't the end of the world.

He inhaled, feeling the final vestiges of his anger melt away, leaving only the beginnings of a headache behind. All right. It was all right.

"I'm off House's call," he told Peters, opening his eyes.

Peters raised his eyebrows. "Are you, now?"

Chase nodded. "Yeah."

"Hm." Looking thoughtful, Peters nodded to himself as walking away.

oOo

The sound of the door opening woke him up.

"Chase?" a voice whispered.

He winced in the light, and quickly discovered that the beginnings of his headache, while they hadn't developed into a full-fledged headache, had not gone away. Dammit.

In the spirit of avoiding Cameron, and in the interest of getting some sleep (and if he was honest with himself, seeing the House in his dreams again, the nice one), Chase had taken refuge in an on call room and had proceeded to sleep the entire afternoon away. He probably would have kept on sleeping, too, but the door had opened—and waking up, he was almost startled to realize that he'd only accomplished one of the three things that he'd come to this room for.

He'd slept.

Yes, he'd certainly done that. But for the first time in a week, there had been no dreams—no dreams of House, no dreams of anything. There wasn't even the feeling that he'd had a dream and the memory of it had slipped away from him—he'd just gone to sleep, and then woke up. Like blinking. There was nothing in between.

And, it seemed, Cameron had managed to track him down.

"Hey," he croaked, and upon hearing his own voice he cleared his throat. He pushed himself up on his elbows to get a better look at Cameron.

She perched herself delicately on the edge of the bottom bunk, expression decidedly neutral. "Hi."

Right. They'd fought last night.

Chase sighed, pushing himself all the way up and moving so that he was sitting cross-legged on the bed. The pressure in his head increased ever so slightly. "All right, what's up?"

"I haven't seen you all day," Cameron informed him, her voice cool around the edges. "Busy day?"

"Yeah." Chase paused. "Actually, I think I forgot to have lunch again. Dammit."

Cameron didn't say anything for a moment, her eyes drifting to the floor.

Chase attempted not to fidget.

"They've been saying the most interesting things around the hospital, today," Cameron finally said.

He sighed. "Do you really want to do this now?"

"Are they true?" she shot back, her eyes snapping to him.

"Depends on what you heard," Chase told her. "Yeah, House and I slept together. It was four years ago, and we haven't done it since. That's all there is to it."

Cameron's eyes widened. "You _slept_ together?"

"Yeah. We did."

"You—" Cameron stopped, her face twisted in the agony of choosing between disgusted and incredulous. "Are you _bisexual?_"

"I guess. Is that really what you have a problem with?"

"No, that's just where I'm starting. Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"It's kind of irrelevant, don't you think?"

"I think I deserve to know who your past sexual partners have been," Cameron said tightly.

"Right," Chase said sarcastically. "Because that's really something you discuss with your girlfriend."

"You slept with our boss!"

"You _tried_ to sleep with our boss," Chase reminded her coolly. "This is just a matter of levels of success."

"This is _not_ matter of levels of success," Cameron insisted, leaning forward. "How dare you accuse me of not putting any effort into our relationship, when you're the one who's been keeping secrets?"

"I'm sorry—how is this at all relevant to our relationship?" The sarcasm was practically dripping. "Oh, that's right. It isn't!"

"Of course it is," Cameron snapped.

"It shouldn't be. The only reason you would possibly care that I've slept with House is that you're jealous."

"Jealous?" Cameron repeated, disbelievingly. "I'm not _jealous_."

"Of course you are. I know I've always been your second choice, but do you think you could _try_ to not make it so obvious?"

Cameron threw her hands up. "You know what your problem is? You're so goddamn needy! You need me to reassure you, to hold your hand, be with you all the time, you don't trust me—"

"It's called a relationship!" Chase broke in furiously. "You're giving me nothing, Allison. Nothing. You and I both know that you're still in love with House, and you can't deal with the fact that I slept with him four years ago. I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry that I wanted more than microwave pizza! I'm sorry that he slept with me and not you! I'm sorry that you're obviously incapable of moving beyond your dead husband and into—"

Cameron slapped him.

"You shut up," she hissed. "Shut the _fuck_ up. You have no right—"

"I have every right, according to you," Chase reminded her sharply, cutting her across. "I've never once pressured you about him, have I?"

There was a little voice screaming in the back of his head that he did not want to go here.

"He wasn't some gay one night stand, he was my _husband,_" Cameron spat. "He's a hell of a lot more important—"

"Excuse me?" Chase said slowly, the anger rising in him and drowning out the little voice in the back of his head. There was a faint roaring in his ears. "Gay one night stand?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I have a problem with the fact that I didn't know my boyfriend liked to take it up—"

The door swung open, flooding the on call room with light and making them both freeze, and for a moment the only things Chase could hear were his own breathing and the roaring in his ears, and he struggled to get both under control when—

"Dr. Chase?" Ricky asked nervously, poking his head in.

"Go away," Chase said through gritted teeth, straining to keep his voice in control.

"I—sorry," he said apologetically, stepping into the room. "Dr. House's case finally wrapped up, and he's about to make his decision on who he's firing. You're kind of in charge of the betting pool, dude."

Chase bit down on his lip to keep the scream of frustration from escaping.

"Go," Cameron said haughtily. "And don't look for me when you get back."

Fury still pounding in his veins, Chase pushed himself off the bed and followed Ricky out, not trusting himself to say anything.

oOo

Practically half the hospital showed up in the back of the auditorium. Chase stood at the front of them, Ricky at his side, the sheet with the details of the betting pool and the envelope of money held in one hand. He was attempting to keep all thoughts of Cameron out of his head, but the fact that the room was dead silent wasn't helping anything. House stood at the front, as though he were about to give a lecture, and the six remaining fellows sat scattered throughout the first few rows of the auditorium.

"You all suck," House announced.

Ricky had filled Chase in on the details of the case on the way there, and Chase was confused. Cutthroat Bitch hadn't done anything wrong, had she?

"The two of you," House went on, pointing his cane accusingly at Thirteen and Cole, "took fourteen hours to find the car. You—" Kutner winced. "—forgot to mention that the guy with no memory, had memories. You—" His cane went to one of the fellows whose name Chase didn't know. "—keep on thinking that insane guys have hidden wisdom. You're going to wind up shooting people on the subway."

Chase rolled his eyes.

House looked over to where Cutthroat Bitch and a shorter, balding man (whose name Chase was positive he'd heard before) were sitting. He thought for a moment, and then waved his hand dismissively. "Something."

The short, balding guy spoke up. "So which one of us sucks the most?"

It seemed like the entire room stopped breathing.

"It's a tie."

"Between?" Cutthroat Bitch immediately demanded.

"All of you," House said impatiently, pushing himself off of the desk.

"So we're all fired?" Cutthroat Bitch asked anxiously.

"None of you are fired," House snapped.

"What?" Ricky hissed furiously.

Behind him, Chase heard various swearing, muttering and shuffling of feet, and he glanced down at the envelope in his hands. It wasn't enough to make him feel better about his fight with Cameron, but it did help some.

He attempted a smile.

"Chase?"

He looked up, expecting to see some huge orthopedic surgeon ready to beat him up, but instead he found Wilson.

"Hey," he said, forcing the smile a little more.

"Looks like you won it all," Wilson said, nodding at the envelope.

Chase shrugged, slipping it into his pocket. "Looks like."

Wilson looked as though he wanted to say something, but he held himself back. He swallowed, and then visibly forced himself to move on to something else. "I talked to some people about your case."

Natalie.

Chase straightened. "And?"

Behind them, people were filing out of the room.

"The parents are in grief counseling and they're being encouraged to go to their daughter, but unfortunately there's nothing I—or anyone else—can do," Wilson told him, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry."

"You talked to their counselor?" Chase asked.

Wilson nodded. "Yeah. She says that she's been pushing the issue, but there hasn't been much success."

Dammit.

Closing his eyes, Chase attempted to push back the rush of disappointment he felt—this, on top of his second fight with Cameron, the lack of House in his dreams, and the headache that had been threatening to siege all day, was really not helping his mood.

"I've seen cases like this before," Wilson added gently. "Things usually work out in the end."

"I know," Chase sighed, forcing himself to open his eyes. "I just—"

"Dr. Chase!" House's boisterous voice interrupted their conversation like a popped balloon, startling Chase and fraying the very last of his nerves.

"Hi," he said shortly.

"Chase?" Wilson asked, his voice concerned.

"I'll deal with it," Chase told him, keeping his voice low. "Thanks for your help."

"Help with what?" House asked instantly.

Chase held in a sigh.

Wilson looked at him, obviously offering to stay, but Chase shook his head. Wilson shrugged and then left, leaving House and Chase alone in the auditorium.

"What's Wilson helping you with?" House asked again.

"None of your business," Chase said tightly. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and grabbed one of the two paper-clipped wads. "Here."

"I'm making it my business," House insisted, as he took the money that Chase offered him. He began counting quickly. "If I find out you shorted me—"

"Oh, fuck off," Chase snapped, pushing past him.

"You fought with Cameron, didn't you?" House asked, suddenly sounding interested. "She didn't like the fact that I like you better, did she?"

Chase clenched his jaw and told himself not to say anything, and stalked out of the auditorium.

House, thank God, did not follow.

oOo

His run-in with House had caused his headache to blossom by the time he made it down to the nursery. He ignored it and made his way past the various bassinets and incubators until he arrived at Natalie's, and after glancing around the dark room to make sure that no one was going to yell at him, he grabbed a blanket from the wall and carefully wrapped Natalie up. He lifted her out of the incubator, which woke her up.

"Shh," Chase muttered, carefully making his way over to the rocking chair in the corner. "This is gonna help, runt."

And it had absolutely nothing to do with how shitty he himself was feeling. Nothing at all.

He settled himself in the chair, and then got Natalie situated a moment later, her whimpers tapering off as she fell back to sleep,. Knowing that he was dead if anyone found him down here, he set his watch to go off at some ungodly hour of the morning before the interns would come in for rounds. A glance at Natalie's monitors confirmed that her stats were going back up—not a lot, but they'd gone up, and was the important thing—and a glance down at Natalie herself confirmed that she was sound asleep, and that was good enough for him.

And determinedly not thinking of Cameron, praying that House would be in his dreams tonight, Chase fell asleep.

oOo

He woke up next to House.

"Oh, thank God," he sighed, burrowing a little deeper into House's side.

House, who had an arm wrapped around him, looked down at him. "Is the touching really necessary?"

"You were gone," Chase mumbled, letting the relief wash over him. "Before. I'm glad you're back."

"Gone?"

Chase, not caring to respond, buried his face and made a happy noise in the back of his throat. His fight with Cameron seemed miles away, now.

"You're pathetic," House informed him.

Yeah, he knew that.

"Also, if you'd care to stick your head up, you'd know that in the last few seconds, five days have passed."

That did get Chase's head up.

"What?"

House jerked his head in the direction of the clock, which was indeed displaying a date five days later than what it had been when Chase had last woken up. He blinked at it, not quite willing to believe that five days had somehow passed in the last few seconds.

"This dream is so fucked up," he muttered, settling back down.

House exhaled. "You know what I think it is?"

"What?" Chase asked. He tried to look up at House's face, but the angle was all wrong.

"I think time passes much more quickly when I'm not here," House told him. He apparently noticed Chase's attempts to get a better look at him, because his hand came and gently pushed Chase's head back down.

Chase frowned.

"What happens, when I'm not here?" House asked.

He remembered his afternoon nap.

"Nothing," he said softly. "There's darkness... It's like no time is passing."

House made a nondescript noise.

"Where do you go?" Chase asked, voice quiet.

House took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Away. Another world."

Chase tried to imagine what happened to his subconscious when he wasn't dreaming. Did subconscious House see everything that went on during the day? He must. Of course your subconscious was still prevalent when you were awake—it just wasn't running the show anymore.

"I'm sorry I was such an arse to you, earlier," he said, belatedly.

"Did you really fight with Cameron?" House asked.

"You know I did," Chase said tersely, unable to help it. "She's jealous, and she didn't like that I was pointing it out."

"Why are you with her, again?"

Chase frowned. "I thought we weren't allowed to talk about my girlfriend in your bed?"

"Ah. Again with the deflecting thing, wombat. We need to work on your subtlety."

"I'm just playing by your rules."

"Try again—more subtle."

Chase sat up. "Let's go to the hospital."

House raised an eyebrow. "Subtle. Not frying pans. _Subtle._"

"Let's go to the hospital," Chase repeated, reaching over to tug on House's hand.

House swatted him away. "Why would we go to the hospital? It's a dream, it doesn't matter."

"Because I don't want to just sit around," Chase said. He began moving towards the edge of the bed. "C'mon. It's a dream, your leg shouldn't even be hurting."

House said nothing, and Chase glanced back at him. House was giving him a strange look.

"What?" he asked.

"You're not convulsing on the floor," House said plainly.

Chase blinked. It took him several seconds to remember that, oh yeah, he hadn't been able to function without touching House before, and that just last night (or six nights ago, he supposed) he'd been practically nonfunctional whenever House had gotten more than a foot away from him. It was what had started all of this.

"I feel fine," he said blankly. He reached over and touched House's shoulder, but there was no difference. He felt completely fine.

"No lingering symptoms?" House asked, sitting up. He grabbed Chase's head and put a finger to his neck, checking pulse. "You were heading for a heart attack last night."

"Nothing," Chase answered, and he sat obediently while House counted his pulse for fifteen seconds.

"Normal," House confirmed, dropping his hand. He turned away, going to his nightstand. "Got a penlight?"

Chase rolled his eyes. "House, it's a _dream_. We don't need to check my pupil dilation."

"It's called being thorough," House snapped. He turned around, flashlight in hand, and grabbed Chase's chin so that he could angle it the right way. "Something you surgeons know nothing about."

Chase wanted to protest but figured that it would be easier to just let House have his way, and sat quietly as House shined the light in his eyes.

"Good," House decided.

"Well, thank God for that," Chase said sarcastically, as House put the flashlight back. "Wouldn't have wanted to die in a dream or anything."

House flipped him off.

"So now that I can function on my own," Chase continued, "can we go to the hospital?"

"That's really where you want to go?"

"We could get a case," Chase suggested with false excitement. "We'll pretend that you never fired me, you never hired Foreman—"

"—that you never betrayed me to Vogler—"

"—you never punched me—"

"—you never slept with Cameron—"

"—you never pretended to have brain cancer—"

"—_I_ never slept with Cameron—"

"—you never—" Chase stopped. "Wait, you slept with Cameron?"

House grinned. "Gotcha."

Chase scowled. "Right. Hospital—come on."

"Why do you want to go, anyway?" House asked, annoyed.

"I don't know, I just do," Chase said irritably. "Maybe it's a weird dream thing, okay?"

"Sure it is," House muttered.

But he was pushing himself out of bed nonetheless.

oOo

"So," House drawled, after an entirely silent ride to the hospital. "I feel like we should be talking, here."

"About what?"

House shrugged. "I don't know. You're the one who actually tries to have functional relationships."

"Explains why we never went anywhere," Chase muttered. He pushed open one of the doors into PPTH.

"Oh, yeah, because things with Cameron are _totally_ working out," House sniped.

They strode through the lobby of the hospital.

"Thought you said we couldn't talk about my girlfriend?" Chase asked.

"In my bed," House corrected. "We are not in my bed. We can totally talk about her now."

"Let's talk about these dreams," Chase said instead, attempting to steer the conversation _away_ from Cameron. "Do you think they mean something?"

"No. Dreams don't mean anything," House said dismissively. "It's all chemicals in your brain."

Chase shook his head as they stopped in front of the elevators. "This dream's different. You know it is."

"Doesn't change the fact that it's a dream."

"But it's been going on for days, now," Chase argued. "And how many dreams do you have where you know that it's actually a dream?"

"Where are we going, exactly?" House asked, as the elevator doors opened.

"Your office," Chase answered, stepping onto the elevator and jabbing the fourth floor button. "You really don't think this dream is weird?"

"I think your face is weird," House retorted.

Chase sighed and rolled his eyes. "Right."

The doors shut, and they began ascending.

"Why are you so obsessed with talking about this dream, anyway?" House asked.

Chase shrugged. "I don't know—I just think it's interesting."

"So you want to pick it apart?"

"Yeah." Chase frowned. "Hang on, isn't this your department? Why don't you want to talk about it?"

"You want to pick it apart because you don't want this to be real," House said, his eyes narrowing.

"So you don't want to pick this apart because you _want_ it to be real?" Chase asked.

"Oh, don't do that." House made a pouty face. "Really. It's just painful to watch you try to be clever."

"Oh, don't do that," Chase mimicked. "Really. It's just painful to watch you try to deflect."

"Deflect?" House repeated. "Because I'm not attempting to analyze a dream? A series of random chemical reactions between synapses?"

"You analyze everything," Chase said, rolling his eyes. The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out onto the fourth floor.

"When there's a point to analyzing it," House countered, catching up quickly. "What's the point in analyzing a dream? You can't do anything about it."

"Sleeping pills," Chase muttered under his breath.

"Oh, _that'd _be a good idea," House said waspishly.

Yeah, there was a rather ugly history in his family when it came to sleeping pills.

"Point," Chase conceded grudgingly.

"I always have a point. Which is why I'm not wasting my time with this stupid dream and why—"

They had stopped just outside of his office, House with his hand on the door handle. Just inside, through the glass walls, Chase saw Cuddy standing behind House's desk with a file in her hands.

"Cuddy is not allowed in this dream," House decided. He turned to look at Chase. "Chase, make her go away."

"I didn't put her here!" Chase said indignantly. "Just go in and tell her to leave."

"I hate this dream," House muttered before he pushed open the door, heaving an enormous sigh. "Cuddles!"

"House," Cuddy replied shortly. She walked up to him, handed him the file, and continued on toward the door. "I want this done by the end of the day, no excuses."

"But it's a dream!"

Cuddy ignored him and walked right out the door.

"Cuddy!" House shouted, limping towards the door. "Hey—hey, it's just a dream, no one's actually dying!"

"Tell it to someone who cares, House," Cuddy called carelessly over her shoulder.

"Bitch!" House yelled after her.

"House!"

"Well, she is," House said sulkily, coming back into the room with a scowl on his face. "Trying to get me to work in a freaking dream. It's not even a diagnostics case, it's surgical."

Chase brightened. "It is?"

"Here." House threw the file at him. "Have a party."

Chase flipped open the file—

Natalie Aurelia Gunten (Baby A), thirteen weeks old, separation from her conjoined identical twin sister Zoe Rose Gunten (Baby B), to be done from C4 to the T7. MRI indicates slight cephalization of CN7 and CN12, blood vessels have fused to Baby A's side, although Baby A has shown decreased appendicular motor function, indicative of...

"Holy shit," he whispered.

"What?"

Chase looked up slowly. "It's 2003, right?"

"That's the popular assumption," House said. He stepped closer, trying to get a look at the file. "Why?"

He attempted to process it.

"I—this is my patient now," Chase said shakily, handing House the folder. "Her sister died on the table. I was assisting. They're not supposed to be born for another four years."

He wasn't sure why his subconscious didn't already know this, but frankly, he was too freaked out to care. What did this mean? Was he really going to do this surgery over again in his dreams? What the hell did that accomplish—there was no way that he could do it by himself. It had taken the combined skills of Peters and Kurtzman to even make an attempt at the separation, and they'd prepared for days ahead of time...

There was no way he'd be able to head that surgery. That was years ahead of his skill level, and even if this was a dream, there was just no way.

But of course, he'd fallen asleep with Natalie. It would make sense that she would appear in his dreams.

"Oh, well," House said lightly, tossing the file onto his desk. "It's a dream. Doesn't matter anyway."

And for whatever reason, Chase felt a rush of panic.

"We can't just let them die," he said, grabbing the file.

"You're telling me that you want us to do this surgery?" House asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No." Chase flipped open the file to check who had referred the girls to them, but there were no names listed. "There's no way we could do it. You've got next to no experience, and—"

"So _you_ want to do it."

"No, I don't have nearly enough training, or prep time, or—"

"So you don't want to do it."

"I want somebody to do it." Chase pressed his lips together, flipping through the pages and searching for something that would help. "I'll just—I'll refer the case to someone else."

"And you're completely aware that this is just a dream?" House asked, sounding doubtful.

"I—yeah," Chase said. He blew out a breath and sat down on the couch. "Yeah, I know."

Was this what his subconscious wanted? For him to figure out what his attachment to Natalie was?

"So what's so special about this case?" House asked curiously.

Apparently, that was exactly what his subconscious wanted.

Chase shut the file, setting it next to him on the...

Couch.

He almost laughed out loud. His subconscious was going to psychologically interrogate him, and of course, he would sit down on the couch. It was all so very pathetic.

"I don't know," he admitted, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "I know it's wrong to get attached. I just..."

"How long have you and Cameron been fighting?" House asked. His voice was not gentle or prompting—it was clinical, as though he'd been presented with an interesting set of symptoms to piece together.

"Only since last night," Chase answered, staring down at the carpeting. "S'got nothing to do with that."

"You're lying."

Chase's head shot up. "It's none of your business."

House tipped his head back. "Oh, here we go."

"Look—" Chase sighed, and picked up the file. "She's just special, all right? I'm gonna go give this to surgery."

"Touching," House said dryly.

"Like you don't have a entire _drawer_ devoted to old patients," Chase shot back, scowling at him.

House's eyes narrowed. "I do not."

"You're lying," Chase said, smirking.

"You're in denial about your shitty relationship with Cameron," House retorted.

"At least I'm in a relationship." Chase stood up, marching toward the door.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you're happier!" House called after him.

Chase stopped at the door and looked back at him. "Than _what? _You?"

House frowned, his eyes intently studying him, but didn't answer.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Chase left. It seemed that nothing would go right, today.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: **Pornz in this chapter. Skip if you don't like. If you do like, I apologize, for it is probably very awkward, as it is my first (and last) venture into smut. Enjoy the chapter!

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 8**

The sound of crying woke him up.

He forced his eyes open, feeling the heavy weight of sleep still upon him, refusing to pull away. The crying was high-pitched and piercing, making his head throb, and he tried to move past the pull of sleep to find the source of it—it was close, very close, and something was struggling in his arms like—

Natalie.

Chase blinked repeatedly, eyes widening with each one. Natalie. She was crying, something must be... He looked over to her monitors to see if she was crashing, but her stats were fine. A little elevated, but from the way she was squalling, that was to be expected. What else could it be? He pushed the blanket back and carefully picked her up, out of the blanket, but the surgical site looked like it was well on its way to healing. Her IV wasn't showing any blood, the circulation to her legs looked good...

Suppressing a groan as his head pounded, he pushed himself out of the chair (his back protested sharply) and moved towards Natalie's incubator. She continued to scream her head off, her arms flailing and her legs jerking about awkwardly.

He set her down and grabbed the stethoscope, quickly putting it on and placing the bell against her chest, trying to listen to her breathing sounds past the crying.

It sounded normal. From what he could hear.

He took the stethoscope away and slipped it around the back of his neck, backing away and resting his hands on the incubator wall, trying to think around his headache. What could be wrong? She might be hungry, but she was being fed intravenously, so that shouldn't...

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he muttered, but he went for the diaper anyway.

One strap, two strap, pull down—

Clear.

What was wrong, then?

She could be hungry, as she was due to be fed in—Chase glanced at his watch after he'd put the diaper back on—an hour or so, but there was nothing he could do about that. They didn't exactly leave orogastric tubes lying around. And it couldn't be constipation, because they weren't giving her anything more than formula... Right?

He grabbed her chart, eyes going to her diet.

Formula only until she was out of the incubator. So there was no way it was constipation.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. He'd picked up babysitting jobs as a teenager, he'd worked under House for three years, and he'd worked in NICU for more hours than he cared to depress himself with by counting—he felt like he should be able to figure out what was wrong with her.

Natalie continued to cry in her incubator.

Chase sighed and went back to the chair he'd slept in, searching for clues.

Natalie's screams got—if it was possible—even _louder,_ and his head throbbed sharply in response. He began to hear other babies start to whimper around her. Whose brilliant idea had it been to put fifty babies in the same room, anyway?

Muttering something unpleasant under his breath, Chase moved back to the incubator and grabbed Natalie's chart, flipping through for something that might give him a hint. Anything. Her pain meds had been reduced yesterday evening, but they hadn't ever been at levels high enough to cause a detox reaction, and there hadn't been any new meds, there had been no initial bad reaction to the reduction...

Okay, so it wasn't something pre-existing. That meant it was new, probably something environmental, but what...

"C'mon," he muttered, picking Natalie up again, and—

It stopped.

Well, it didn't stop exactly, but almost immediately her screams quieted to whimpers.

Chase was so surprised that he stopped mid-step and nearly tripped. Blinking, he stared down at Natalie, who was burying her face into his scrubs, grabbing at them with one of her hands—the whimpers were dying down to sniffling little breaths, and it seemed like seconds later that she was sleeping.

He stared.

"What the _fuck?_" he breathed.

Yeah, this was why he was never having kids.

oOo

Chase had enough time before pre-rounds with the interns to sneak over to the ER and bagel-bribe the nurse into telling him Cameron's work schedule for today, which told him that Cameron would be in from this evening until tomorrow at five. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do about their relationship—he knew that he didn't want to break up with her, and she'd already sought him out once and that hadn't ended so well, meaning that the only option left was to go to _her_, but Chase really didn't want to do that. He didn't want to go to her without a plan, or at the very least something to say, and he didn't have anything.

He was sorry that things were the way they were, but hell, if she couldn't admit that she was still in love with House then where were they? If she couldn't accept the fact that he had a history with guys as well as girls then where were they?

Then again, he reminded himself, Cameron had a tendency to plan out speeches for the people that she was angry at ahead of time, just in case they confronted her about it. Chase knew this because if you put her on the spot in an argument, she floundered, but if you gave her twenty minutes to stew, she'd be all over you. If he went and found her tonight, then she'd probably have something planned out for him, and he wouldn't have to worry about having a purpose. She'd be waiting to attack.

"Hey, Dr. Chase," Ricky called as he passed by, jolting Chase out of his musings.

"Hey," Chase replied, shaking himself mentally. Thankfully, his headache from earlier had been reduced to the point where he was almost able to ignore it.

Grinning, Ricky set the stack of pre-round charts at the nurse's station. "So, what do you have for me?"

It took Chase a moment to remember that he'd promised to get Ricky in on an interesting surgery today, and then another to realize that he'd been standing here thinking about Cameron instead of checking the boards for his schedule today, which was what he'd _meant_ to do.

He turned his gaze up to the board, scanning for his name. Appie, appie, and a...

"Score," he breathed, and it was all he could do not to punch the air in victory. He turned to Ricky. "Wanna get in on a reconstruction?"

"The hand one?" Ricky asked, wide-eyed. His eyes went to the board, searching for it. "The dude that got his hand stuck in his garbage disposal? Are you kidding?"

Chase raised an eyebrow, attempting to hide his smile. "That's a yes, then?"

Ricky nodded enthusiastically.

"Great. I'll let Dr. Scott-Englebert know that—"

And then out of nowhere, Thirteen showed up, marching right up to him.

"I'll get you in," Chase promised Ricky quickly, before turning his attention to Thirteen. "Yeah?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Why are you protecting me, now?"

"Protect—" Chase stopped.

Thirteen raised her eyebrows expectantly, and suddenly it clicked.

"Let's walk," Chase said calmly, putting a hand on her shoulder and steering her down the hallway. He needed a second to collect his thoughts. Thirteen clearly thought that last night's lack of a firing was due to him (which, in part, it was), which meant that she thought that he had finally given into her demands.

He thought about protesting, but the consequences of that quickly laid themselves out in his mind. Best to go along with it.

"The entire hospital thinks that House has been fucking my brains out," he said in a low voice. "My own bloody girlfriend won't even believe me. I cracked, all right?"

Thirteen eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but when she finally spoke, her voice was amused. "Cameron doesn't believe you?"

Chase gritted his teeth, reminding himself that next week, House was going to fire this bitch and none of this would matter.

"No," he said tightly, still keeping his voice down. "She doesn't. I went to House and convinced him to keep you."

"Just for last night?" Thirteen demanded.

Chase did some very, very quick thinking.

"No," he told her, shaking his head. "I asked him to give you a few weeks of immunity, to get you down to the final four, and he told me that he's already planning on keeping you no matter what you do."

"I don't believe you," Thirteen said immediately, her eyes narrowing again.

Dammit.

Chase shrugged. "Believe what you want. It's what he told me."

"If you're wrong—"

"And why would I be wrong?" Chase interrupted coolly. "I'm telling you what House told me. If he fires you anyway, it's hardly my fault that he lied."

"If you think he lied," Thirteen said tersely, "then you need to get back up there and persuade him to tell the truth."

"I don't think he lied."

"I do."

"You're nervous," Chase stated. "And you don't trust me."

"Of course I don't trust you!"

"When you blackmail a person into helping you keep your job, it only works if you _trust_ the person who's helping you keep your job," Chase snapped. "So shut your mouth. God knows it's done enough damage as it is."

Thirteen stopped walking.

Chase stopped as well, waiting.

She pressed her lips together, looking as though she were doing some very fast thinking of her own, and she finally nodded her head. Warily. "Fine."

Chase frowned, something suddenly occurring to him. "Wait. Does House have a case?"

Thirteen shook her head.

"Then why are you here?" Chase asked.

Thirteen rolled her eyes. "Clinic duty. House is up in his office, reorganizing his iPod or something."

Chase smirked.

oOo

It dawned on him between his first and second appendectomy that as he hadn't eaten a substantial meal in at least a day and a half, his headache was probably due to hunger. This sent him down to the cafeteria, where he found himself in line behind fifty other starving people. Eating was a popular activity.

He was staring ahead, trying to decide whether it was worth taking at shot at the new chili recipe that was rumored to be good, when the sound of his name made him stop.

"—ought to get myself in with Dr. Chase, sometime."

"He's a cool guy."

Chase looked around for a few seconds, before spotting Ricky at a table of other interns, a few feet from where he was standing.

Ricky took a bite of his hamburger. "But seriously, this surgery. You don't even know, man."

"You know that Suhrbi was actually in the ER when they brought him in?" the girl next to him said, looking slightly disgruntled. "All I ever get are the assholes looking to get an excuse for work."

"They're saying it's going to be at least nine hours in the OR," Ricky told them excitedly. "Nine!"

"Whatever, man. Still doesn't top my solo whipple yesterday," the guy next to him said. He stole a handful of french fries off of Ricky's plate.

Ricky took no notice.

"Jake, that totally doesn't count," the disgruntled girl said. "Solo means _alone_. Without someone to connect the bile duct to the jejunum for you."

"I got _flustered,_" Jake insisted. "I had a dream about the guy that died on me right before the surgery, okay?"

"Bullshit. You got scared."

"_You_ tried to check for a heart murmur without your stethoscope in your ears."

"Seriously?" another intern asked, raising her eyebrows at the girl.

"Jake! I told you not to tell anyone."

"Guys, guys," Ricky cut in, putting a calming hand on each of their shoulders. "_Hand reconstruction_. Does anything else matter?"

The girl shrugged the hand off, stealing one of Ricky's french fries.

Jake leaned over and attempted to lick Ricky's hand.

"Eugh!" Ricky half-shouted, jumping away. "Jake!"

"Hey, buddy."

Chase jumped, not having realized that he'd been eavesdropping for so long.

The guy behind him gestured impatiently. "C'mon, let's go. I've got places to be."

Chase quickly moved along, grabbing the first thing in front of him.

oOo

"Okay." Chase watched Ricky's hands carefully. "And what are you going to use here?"

"I was thinking the, uh, half-buried mattress stitch?" Ricky looked embarrassed.

Chase raised his eyebrows. "You think that's necessary?"

Ricky shrugged. "I got practice on it last week, I was on rotation in neuro. And he's gonna have enough scars."

"Go for it," Chase said, shrugging. "But do vertical, not horizontal."

Ricky grinned, picking up the needle holder. "Awesome."

Chase watched him start, making sure that he knew what he was doing, before glancing over to the scrub in area, where Adam and Renee were already drying their hands. The surgery had ended up taking nine hours, and as Chase had only been third doctor on this one, he'd volunteered to stay behind and watch the close-up. He was actually thankful that he'd only been assisting for this, because about halfway through, his headache had suddenly worsened to the point that it was affecting his concentration.

And he would have ducked out, but the person in line behind him was Alan Sarghetti and Chase was still sore over the separation surgery, so there was no way that he had been about to let the guy get his reconstruction, too.

Petty, sure. But he'd accepted that he was pathetic like that long ago, and had moved on.

His plans for after the surgery included tracking down some aspirin, possibly tracking down Cameron to talk to her, checking on Natalie, and then going home and sleeping in his own bed for once. He might spend another night with Natalie, depending on whether or not she was out of the incubator (or if her parents had finally come to see her). But he really wanted to be home, in his own—

"Dr. Chase?"

He blinked, focusing on Ricky. "Yeah?"

"Do you think I should reinforce it?" Ricky asked, gesturing to his suturing. He'd partially closed the palm.

Chase shook his head. "It's going to be immobile for a long time, I wouldn't bother."

Ricky nodded and went back to his suturing.

"Those are good," Chase noted, leaning a little closer to check. "Nice spacing."

Ricky didn't look up, but there was a note of pride in his voice as he replied, "Thank you."

Chase glanced up to the viewing gallery, discovering Ricky's friend Jake and another intern standing up there, chowing down on a bag of popcorn and in the middle of some lewd, obnoxious position meant to distract Ricky—and then they realized that they were being watched, and quickly straightened.

Chase rolled his eyes, turning back to Ricky's sutures.

"I see your friends are waiting for you," he remarked lightly.

Ricky laughed. "Yeah. It's Jake's birthday tonight, we're going out as soon as we're done here."

"You want me to finish up for you?" Chase asked.

"Nah." Ricky slipped the needle in again. "I'm almost done."

And he was. Ricky must have gotten a lot of practice on this stitch last week in neuro to be moving so efficiently.

Ricky glanced up. "You should come with us, Dr. Chase. We're just going out to a bar, probably play a few rounds of darts."

Chase just barely stopped himself from snorting. "I haven't been out of his hospital since Thursday. Literally. I need to go home."

"You sure?" Ricky glanced up again, waggling his eyebrows. "We could make it a date."

Chase really, really hoped that Ricky wasn't being serious.

"No thanks," he said, shaking his head. "I really need to get home."

"Your lo—" Ricky started to say, but he cut himself off as the door to the OR was pushed open.

"Dr. Chase?" Peters said. "If I might have a word with you?"

Chase glanced at Ricky, who was only three or four stitches away from being done, and then turned his eyes back to Peters. "Sure."

He started walking towards the scrub in room, gesturing for Peters to follow him in. Whatever Peters had to say, it didn't sound as though it were very pressing—it was likely that the only reason Peters had called Chase out early was because he'd had the time at this moment but wouldn't have had it in the ten minutes that it would have taken them to finish closing up, wrapped the hand up in gauze, and scrubbed out.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Peters?" he asked as he pushed open the door. He reached up and pulled the mask off of his face, tossing it into the nearest biohazard bin.

The door closed behind them with a click.

"So rumor is a pretty busy creature around here," Peters commented.

Shit.

Chase worked the knot on his surgical gown quickly, shrugging it off into the biohazard bin seconds later. "Rumor's a bounty hunter, not a mistress."

There was a silence in which Chase _knew_ that Peters paused to think that over. He peeled off his gloves—the biohazard bin as well—then went to the sink, turning on the faucet with his elbow.

"Look," he sighed, running his hands under the water. "Someone's been saying things about me and Dr. House, I know. I can promise you that it's not true."

"I don't care if it's true," Peters countered, taking a step towards him.

Chase took four pumps of soap into his right hand. "You want me to stop the rumors? Because believe me, if I could, I would have. Yesterday."

Peters looked irritated. "Just get your personal life under control, Dr. Chase."

Chase wanted to tell him that it was about as under control as it ever was, but he didn't think that it would go over too well.

"I'll do my best."

oOo

"Still no parents?"

Kate shook her head. "Still no parents."

Chase nodded and set Natalie's chart back down.

Natalie gurgled, blowing spit bubbles at him.

oOo

Chase kind of loved his bed.

oOo

"You realize this is just a dream, right?" House asked for the millionth time.

"Good. Go away," Chase replied, tones clipped. The first thing that had come to his mind upon coming back to this dream was that Natalie and Zoe were supposed to go into surgery, and he prayed that they were alive, that they were separated and that both of them had lived this time—irrationally, he hoped that at least Natalie had survived, if not Zoe—and more than anything, he prayed that their parents were there, because the lousy assholes couldn't be bothered with their surviving daughter, in real life.

"You know that this kind of attachment could get you fired," House said conversationally.

"Don't you have somewhere else you could be?"

House carried on as if he hadn't heard. "Really, you should be fired."

"Go away."

"I would fire you."

"You already did."

House paused. "Oh yeah."

Chase rolled his eyes as they came to a stop in front of the elevator, waiting for the doors to open. "Why don't you go bother Wilson? I'm sure he's in his office."

"No, he won't. It's Saturday."

"No it's not, it's Sunday," Chase said with a frown. "Or maybe even Monday."

"That's in real life. I'm talking about here, wombat," House said, poking him with his cane.

Chase glanced down at the cane in annoyance. "How do you know it's Saturday?"

"Because I looked at a calendar before you took off to go see your precious little circus freaks," House replied dryly.

"That's two days more than last time. It was five days the time before that. I can't figure out if there's some sort of pattern to it or—"

Chase stopped as the elevator dinged, and the doors parted. He waited as the sole occupant—a man wearing a lab coat and a baseball cap—stepped off, before following House onto the elevator. He pushed the button to the second floor.

"There's got to be a pattern to it," House mused. "There's always a pattern."

Chase leaned against the back wall, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You said that you thought time passed faster when you weren't here, right?"

House nodded.

"I guess..."

But no ideas were coming to mind.

Time passed faster when House wasn't here—which meant that time passed faster while Chase was awake. But the same amount of time had passed between the first three dreams, so why would one cause a five-day jump and the other a three-day jump?

And what did it mean that Chase had gone to sleep and hadn't dreamt anything at all?

"It doesn't make any sense," he murmured to himself, staring down at the floor.

"We're just thinking about it wrong," House said, shaking his head.

Chase blew out a breath. "Does there even have to be a pattern? It's a bloody dream."

"Everything has a pattern," House insisted.

The elevator doors opened. Chase would have continued the discussion, but then he caught sight of who was waiting to get on the elevator.

"Ricky?" he said incredulously.

Ricky's eyes widened. "Dr. Chase?"

What the hell was _Ricky_ doing here? He wasn't supposed to be in this hospital for another four years—but here he was, looking no different than he had during today's surgery.

Chase scrambled to say something, but before he could get words in, House spoke up.

"Oh, great," he said scathingly. "I love running into my boyfriend's exes."

Ricky's head snapped over to House so fast that Chase thought he heard it crack, his face going red. "I—no, Dr. House—"

"He's not my ex, House," Chase said tiredly, pushing himself off of the wall. "He's one of my interns."

House's eyes narrowed. "You're the one who was running the betting pool for Chase. Randall."

"Ricky," Chase and Ricky corrected in unison.

House waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever. What do you want?"

"To get on the elevator," Ricky said. He looked over at Chase. "Are you two really..."

Chase nodded. "Yeah."

"Cool," Ricky said, shrugging. He stepped onto the elevator. "Were you two getting off here?"

"We were—"

"You like him, don't you?" House interrupted, his eyes fixed on Ricky.

Ricky blinked. "Who, Dr. Chase? Of course I do."

"You _like_ him," House repeated, with emphasis.

"House!"

"Wait—are you saying that I have a crush on Dr. Chase?" Ricky asked incredulously. "You're joking, right?"

"He's just being an asshole. Ignore him," Chase told him, rolling his eyes. "House, I'm leaving. I'll see you around, Ricky."

And with that, he strode off of the elevator.

He walked down the hallway, intent on the surgical nursing station, and seconds later heard House's footsteps behind him. He smirked to himself.

"You know that you take the fun out of everything, right?" House asked as he caught up.

Chase worked to get the smirk off of his face. He was only partially successful. "I think you're confusing me with Wilson."

"Randall totally has a crush on you."

"House."

"He does. You didn't see his eyes when he thought you weren't looking."

"Stop it."

"I'm gonna track him down," House decided, a sadistic light coming to his eyes. "How long do you think I'll have to torture him before he wets himself?"

"House, you don't even know his name."

"I do know his name," House countered. "I just choose not to use it."

Chase snorted. "Right."

"Oh, _Ricky_, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind—hey Ricky! Hey Ricky!" House sang loudly. "Oh Ricky, you're so—"

"Hi," Chase said over the sound of House's singing, coming to a stop at the nurse's station. "I'm looking for Natalie and Zoe Gunten."

oOo

They ended up in a closet, not unlike the microwave pizza days with Cameron. As usual, Chase was the first to lose his shirt. He complained about this as House sucked at the delicate skin over his clavicle.

"You took it off yourself," House reminded him, then he nipped at the skin.

Chase gasped, falling a little more against the wall. "You were—you _tugged_..."

"Slut."

Panting.

"Fuck you."

House braced himself against the wall and brought his head up, capturing Chase's mouth and effectively shutting him up. It wasn't a lazy, slow kiss, either. House was hard and fast, tongue pushing into Chase's mouth and slamming his head back into the wall—which actually hurt quite a bit, in the few moments of clarity that Chase managed to snatch when they broke for air. Dizzily, his fingers went to House's pants and they were kissing again. A hand came up and cupped the back of his head, massaging the sore spot and ensuring that Chase's head didn't hit the wall this time.

Chase was getting his fingers to work somehow, fumbling until he got the button undone and then working on the zipper. He could feel House getting hard beneath his fingers, only inches away and electricity shot through his body, leaving him breathless.

He let his fingers skim the band of House's boxers, pushing his pants down with his thumbs. House worked his hand into Chase's hair, pulling through tangles and sending coils of pleasure straight to Chase's stomach, and he writhed, thrusting against House.

"You like that way too much," House panted, falling forward against Chase, his forehead against the wall.

"I have a sensitive head," Chase said defensively.

House snorted.

Chase slipped a hand into House's boxers, tracing the sharp angle of his hipbone down, down, down—

"Shit!" House gasped, his hips jerking wildly. "Shit, Chase!"

"Talk about a sensitive head." Chase pulled his hand out, smirking.

With a growl, House reached out and yanked on Chase's pants, somehow managing to unbutton and unzip them in one go, grabbed both his pants and boxers and had them down to Chase's knees with one solid pull. Before Chase could get in a word of protest, his hand wrapped around Chase's cock and squeezed.

"Aaaa—not fair!" Chase choked out. "Not—not fair."

House smirked, the tips of his fingers running up and down the throbbing vein on the underside of his cock. "Such coherency."

"If you don't let go," Chase threatened breathlessly, "we're never going to get to the good part."

House considered this for a moment, then reluctantly let his hand slip away—and the sensation of House's long fingers running all the way down him send shocks of need down to the center of his being, and Chase let out a wanton moan that had no air behind it.

"Cheater," he accused, opening his eyes and struggling to breathe.

"Oh, very nice," House said dryly, using his free hand to pull his own pants down. "You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Chase flipped him off as he pushed himself away from the wall, finding movement difficult. He was boneless and dizzy.

"What are you doing?" House demanded.

"Turning around," Chase said, getting himself all the way around and falling back against the wall. "C'mon. Haven't you done this before?"

"Had gay sex in a closet? You're saying you _have?_"

Chase looked back at him over his shoulder. "You seriously think that you and Cameron are the only people I've had sex with in the last four years?"

"No talking about Cameron," House muttered, moving forward.

"We're not in your be—bloody _hell!_"

House was pressed against him, his finger having worked its way into a place that it was most welcome, and he thrust up from behind, making Chase let out a strangled cry as he braced himself against the wall desperately, toes curled with intense pleasure. House's finger was moving, teasing, pushing, and stripping Chase of coherent thought.

"Good," House breathed. "You good?"

Chase nodded, and it took him several tries to find his vocal cords. "Ah—good. You got lube?"

"It's a dream. What the fuck do we need with that?"

"Used it last night," Chase reminded him, shifting impatiently.

"'Cause it was there, not because we needed it," House hissed. "It's a _dream_."

"So you're telling me that your leg doesn't hurt right now?" Chase asked, turning his head so that he was looking back at House.

There was an awkward pause in which House realized that Chase was right.

"Well what the hell are we supposed to use?" House demanded. "Spit?"

"There's nothing in here you could use?"

House squinted at the shelves around them. "Suturing kits. Want a pair of scissors up your ass?"

"Nothing?" Chase asked desperately. House's hand was in a _really_ good location right now. "It's a dream, can't you just wish some into existence?"

"If I could do that, don't you think I would have wished my leg out of existence?"

Chase whined and shifted again. "House..."

"I'm not using spit," House said irritably. He took a small step backwards, taking his hand off the wall and bracing himself against the shelf. "I don't see anything. Surgical masks, towels, more suture kits..."

Suture kits.

"There's burn gel in the suture kits!" Chase remembered, and he frantically tried to look over her shoulder but his hair was falling in his eyes. "They're not going to start ordering the cheaper ones until Vogler comes in a year from now, use the burn gel."

House grinned, grabbing a kit off the shelf and shaking it until it unrolled, and seized the little tube of burn gel. "Good memory."

"Nothing like a manhunt for lube to get you in the mood," Chase muttered, facing the wall again.

House moved closer, wrapping his arm around Chase instead of bracing himself against the wall. He slid a second, now cold with burn gel, finger and leaned forward, grabbing onto Chase's earlobe with his teeth.

Despite the interruption Chase was already squirming, biting down on his tongue to keep himself from groaning. House's fingers moved inside of him, there was hot breath on his neck and House's tongue teasing his ear, and he was fast losing track of where the shocks of pleasure were coming from. There was an intensity building, tumbling in the pit of his stomach and going down—

"You could scream, you know," House breathed into his ear, letting his earlobe go. "It's a dream. No one cares that we're having gay sex in a closet."

Chase's toes were curling and uncurling frantically. "House... House, please."

"We're only two fingers in, baby," House said, the amusement in his voice plain. "Hang in there."

Frustrated, impatient, Chase arched against the wall. The movement sent rippling, familiar sensations through him and inspired, he started moving back down, up again, down—

House tightened his arm around him. "This is not a finger fuck. _Wait_."

Chase was about to protest, a desperate keening noise rising in his throat, when House put his third finger in and Chase sucked in a breath as pain shot up to the small of his back, coming in bursts like a firecracker, and he went completely rigid, clamping his mouth shut. House twisted his hand ever so slightly and Chase stiffened, moving away, but House help him securely in place.

"Relax," House said softly. He shifted, pushing his face into Chase's hair, almost nuzzling it. "Relax."

Chase swallowed and took in deep breaths, forcing his muscles to relax. He knew how to deal with this. He just had to let it come, let himself relax, let his muscles accept it...

The spikes of pain were lessening, slowing. He let out a slow, controlled breath, and let his body relax, coming down slightly, and House tentatively moved one of his fingers. There was the familiar rippling sensation, but no pain. The pain was gone.

He let out a rush of air. "Good. I'm good."

"Ready?" House asked.

Chase nodded.

"Hold on to that thought."

The arm around him fell away and there was a popping noise of a lid opening. Chase wriggled impatiently, his entire body practically throbbing with anticipation. He was hot, so hot, and so ready to have that familiar thickness inside of him that he was in danger of coming at the mere thought. His head was rushing and the darkness around him spun so that there was nothing but him and House, nothing but touch and sweat and heat, and he was drowning. He needed House. He needed touch, he needed House.

And then he felt House's fingers slide out of him, and there was a moment of resonating relief from deep within his body, and then House was _there_.

Behind him, House let out a long, shuddering breath. "Oh, fuck... Oh, fuck, you're so tight."

Chase's stomach muscles clenched and he bit down on his cheek, holding his breath as he waited.

A tentative thrust from House and Chase braced himself against the wall, trying to breathe evenly and relax his muscles. House's arm had come to wrap itself around him again, and the contact, the feel of House's hand gripping at his flesh, the sound of House's ragged breathing—that was good. He waited as House thrust again, beginning to set a rhythm, and Chase was about to tell House that he was completely off the mark when the the third time turn out to be a charm.

Euphoria exploded inside of him, hot and sweeping, and something incoherent rushed up his throat and spilled out of his mouth.

The sensation was gone a second later, leaving only the aftershocks, but Chase barely had time to breathe before House pushed in again.

Ecstasy ripped through him, nearly tearing him in two. He gasped for breath, hands curling into fists as he tried to grab the wall, wondering how he was possibly still standing when waves of unbelievable pleasure were rattling him senseless. He was pretty sure that some kind of noise was coming out of his mouth, but he couldn't register what it was. He was gone, gone, gone, being pounded to death with bliss.

He was throbbing, he was drowning, he was flying. He needed more.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," House panted. "Fuck."

Chase screwed his eyes shut, moving down when House came up, making the hits harder, stronger, doubling the sensation of pleasure that was rippling through ever muscle in his body. It wasn't enough, the brief seconds in between were too hollow, he needed more, more, needed to be free of his body and explode. He needed. He couldn't get enough.

The arm around him moved down, the hand reaching out, grasping—something dark and hot was building inside of Chase, threatening to explode at any second, and every thrust brought him closer, on the edge, over the edge—

He lost it. He came so hard that his vision blanked and the sound in his ears was reduced to tinnitus, and he had no idea what came tearing out of his mouth. Moments later he felt House come, hot and hard, and Chase slumped against the wall as House pulled out.

It was over.

Completely out of breath, he opened his eyes and blinked, trying to get his vision back. His heart was pounding, his mind was reeling, and his veins were singing with happiness despite the distant burn in his ass. Odd. The burn gel should have prevented that. The makers probably hadn't tested it for this use, though.

House fell against him, panting, arms wrapping around his waist—more for balance than for affection, Chase knew, but all the same—and they stood there for several minutes, breathing hard.

Chase shifted, and he realized something. His head whipped around, trying to get a look at House—and his eyes widened.

"You arse—you're still wearing your shirt!"

"That's it. Pull up your pants, we're moving to an on call room."

oOo

Chase swore that he hadn't had this much sex in his dreams since high school. And while it was true that he and Cameron had been too busy working and fighting to do anything more than share a quick kiss for a week and a half, it didn't make him sex-starved. Certainly not this sex-starved. He had absolutely no reason to be having these kind of dreams.

But he did not tell House that. House was currently having too much fun attempting to find out when Chase had lost his virginity.

"Fourteen," he suggested.

Chase sighed. "House, the only reason kids know _how_ to lose their virginity at the age of fourteen is because of Wikipedia. Was Wikipedia around when I was fourteen?"

"Fifteen, then."

"House."

"You weren't one of those idiots who lost it on their eighteenth birthday, were you?"

Chase buried his face in the pillow. "No."

"Were you _over_ the age of eighteen when you lost your virginity?" House pressed.

"Yes."

House paused. "You're kidding."

Chase kept his face planted in the pillow. "Don't you have something else to figure out?"

"Seriously? You made it all the way through high school without popping some girl's cherry?"

"I was busy."

There was another pause, in which Chase figured that House was putting two and two together.

"Were you over the age of twenty-five?" House asked, moving right along.

"Yes."

"Okay, _now _you're shitting me."

"Why do you even need to know this?"

"Were you over the age of twenty-six?"

"Yes."

"Twenty-seven?"

"Yes."

"Twenty-_eight?_"

"No."

Chase waited.

"Okay, now you're just fucking with me. I hired you when you were twenty-eight."

Chase was silent.

"Uh, Chase?"

Nothing.

"I didn't actually take your virginity, did I?"

Still nothing.

"Chase. Look at me."

Chase slowly raised his head and turned to look at House, unable to keep the shit-eating grin off of his face.

"Psych."

House blinked.

Chase burst out laughing. "I was seventeen! Twenty-_eight? _ Honestly, House..."

"I knew you were lying," House said, recovering after a moment or so. "You were way too experienced."

"Again—Wikipedia,"

"And if you ever admit to having used Wikipedia as a sexual guide, I am disowning you," House informed him.

Chase snorted but didn't answer, rolling onto his back again. He was still grinning to himself.

"I see you smiling over there."

"'Course I'm smiling," Chase said, rolling his eyes. "I'm happy. It's what normal people do when they're happy."

"I hate to break it to you, blondie, but you're not normal," House put in dryly.

Chase shoved him lightly. "I'm more normal than you are."

"Please. Chase. On a scale of zero to normal, you're somewhere in the negatives."

"House, that puts you in the—" Chase stumbled. "—subnegatives."

House snorted. "Then you're in the sub-subnegatives."

"Then you're in the sub-sub-subnegatives."

"And you're in the sub-sub-sub-subnegatives."

"Oh yeah? Well, you're _absolute zero,_" Chase said smugly. "Hah."

"Which makes you a Bose-Einstein condensate," House returned smoothly.

Chase blinked.

"No, that makes _you_ the Bose-Einstein condensate."

"The Bose-Einstein condensate doesn't exist. Therefore, it has to be you," House concluded.

"I exist!"

"Dream." House gave him a very pointed look.

Chase paused.

"Oh, yeah."

"Speaking of which..." House waggled his eyebrows.

Chase raised one, in turn. "Yes?"

"What good are dreams if you can't do anything fun?" House asked. "C'mon!"

"House, we just went through two rounds. I don't think—"

"Exactly!" House interrupted, pushing himself further up onto his elbow. "One for each of your little brats that survived the stupid surgery. Now one for us."

"No."

"Chase..."

"No."

"You're starting to sound like Wilson."

Chase paused, and came to the grudging conclusion that it was _not_ an association he wanted.

"I hate you."


	9. Chapter 9

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 9**

Waking up was getting progressively less and less fun.

Especially now that he'd had a night in his own bed instead of some shoddy hospital bed—coupled with the fact that his head was pounding and that his first day off in nearly two weeks was so close he could almost taste it, and yeah, it took him a good fifteen minutes to convince himself to get out of bed. He had Wednesday off. True, he had plans to spend the day sink shopping with Cameron, followed by dinner and a lame action...

Oh. Right. That was probably off.

And upon remembering that he was in the middle of fighting with Cameron, he almost crawled back into bed.

The word almost didn't properly convey just how bloody _close_ he'd been to curling up and going back to sleep. Chase spent the drive to the hospital alternatively berating himself for his stupid, pathetic, masochistic tendencies and trying to get the ibuprofen unstuck from the back of his throat. Unsurprisingly, by the time he arrived at the hospital, he'd gotten absolutely nowhere on either front. He was also late.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit," he muttered, pulling into the first parking spot he saw and slamming the gear shift into park. He pushed the car door open and was halfway out of the car when he remembered that his keys were still in the ignition, and he swore again.

He hurried into the hospital, heading for the stairs and not even bothering with the elevator. He was due to start his shift in fifteen minutes, which meant that he was probably due for surgery in twenty, and by the time he got out of his clothes and into his scrubs, checked the boards, looked over the pre-op charts... He'd planned on getting here early to check on Natalie, but that wasn't going to happen. He'd have to check in on her later, when he got some free time.

"Dammit..." he said under his breath, mostly to himself, as he nearly missed the last step, his sneaker slipping slightly.

He burst out of the stairwell and strode down the hallway, knowing the path to the surgical board so well, he could have closed his eyes and done it without even counting his steps. He was going to be late, he was going to be late, he was going to be late—

And then there was Cameron.

He stopped.

She took in a deep breath, visibly gathering courage. "We need to talk."

"Later?" Chase asked, somewhat out of breath from his half-sprint up the stairs. His heart was still pounding, adrenaline still surging, and a glance at the clock revealed that he only had five minutes until his shift started. "I'm running late, and I still have absolutely no idea what I'm going to be—"

"You've got a bowel resection in an hour," Cameron interrupted him smoothly. "I sent an intern off to take care of the pre-op—Jake, I think. We need to talk."

Chase blinked, disbelief filling the void between panic and anger. "You—Cameron, you can't just send someone else off to do my job! It's my job, and you don't—"

"Chase, please." Cameron's voice was suddenly pleading. "_Please_. I just want to talk."

Blood was still rushing in his ears. He wanted to open his mouth and demand to know where she got off running his life, taking over his surgeries and directing him around, but he held his tongue. That wouldn't solve anything, and they did need to talk. He had to stop using work as a way to avoid his problems with Cameron—that's where his father had gone wrong.

"Okay," he said, letting out a breath. "Let's talk."

Cameron's mouth twisted, and she took in a shallow breath. "Okay."

Something like dread churning in his stomach, Chase led her into an on call room a few meters down the hallway. He tried to not to imagine how this was going to play out, tried to keep his mind blank and open. It could go badly. It could go well.

Cameron locked the door behind them.

Chase leaned up against the wall, trying to keep calm. The ibuprofen stuck in the back of his throat suddenly tasted bitter, and his head throbbed sharply.

"Okay," Cameron said, turning around. She leaned against the door, putting her hands the pockets of her pink scrubs, and her eyes went to the floor. "I—"

Her mouth made a few soundless words before she closed it with a snap.

"I'm sorry," Chase blurted out.

Cameron's head shot up.

"I'm sorry that you had to find out about House and—everything—through the rumor mill." The words stumbled out of his mouth from nowhere. "It wasn't fair. I should have told you earlier."

"I—" Cameron looked up. "Can we just forget about it?"

"Forget about what?" Chase asked.

Cameron took in a deep breath, her eyes intent on the floor again. "You have to understand, I was raised Catholic."

"You're an atheist," Chase stated, attempting to swallow the rising dread.

"But I was raised to believe certain things, Chase," Cameron said irritably, head coming up again. "There were things that were ingrained in me that I can't just get rid of."

"So you're homophobic," Chase said flatly, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn't help the flare of hurt in his chest, but he stomped down on the urge to lash out.

Cameron straightened. "I'm _not_ homophobic. But... But it's one thing when it's your friend and another when it's your boyfriend—it's completely different." She hesitated, then crossed the room and took his hands. "Listen. It doesn't matter, let's just move on and forget this ever happened. I still love you."

He blinked, processing her words.

"No," he said slowly, working to keep his voice calm. "You love every part of me that you're comfortable with."

"I love you as much as I _can_," Cameron stressed, squeezing his hands. Her words were as desperate as they were soft. "I'm trying, I'm trying to make this work, and to do that I have to ignore it because I can't deal with it."

"You're not even willing to try?" Chase asked, strands of his anger lacing the words.

"I _can't_."

Chase yanked his hands away, pushing himself off the wall and going to the bunk bed, resting his forehead against the frame and bringing his hands above his head, grasping at the metal. Why was this going wrong? What was he supposed to _do?_

He didn't want to lose her. But they couldn't just _ignore_ something like this. There would be repercussions

Images of his dreams, of House, flashed through his mind.

Small, delicate hands started to rub his back, and he could feel Cameron's body just barely against his back. "I'm sorry," she murmured, her voice sounding slightly choked. "I'm sorry, I just can't think about it. I'm sorry..."

Chase absolutely _hated_ the voice inside of him that was mocking Cameron's attempt at a massage, reminding him just how much he wished that her hands were bigger, stronger, able to actually dig into his muscles. A man's hands. House's hands.

"Cameron..."

He heard her exhale, her hands dropping away.

"Look," he said, raising his head and turning around while drawing his thoughts together. "I don't know how the hell we would even..."

"We can do this," Cameron told him, her eyes locking onto his. Her gaze was steady, serious. "We're going to get over this. We can put in more effort, I don't care if we just have dinner in the cafeteria, or if we spend a night in the on call room, and you can—you can have one of my drawers, you can leave your toothbrush by the sink, okay? We're gonna get through this. I know it."

"Cameron. You can't just ignore the fact that I'm bisexual." Chase stepped away.

"I can't if you keep _reminding_ me," Cameron said in a strained voice, attempting and failing to smile.

Bitterly. "My apologies."

"I'm _trying_, Chase," Cameron snapped. "This is me putting in an effort. I find out from some nurse that my boyfriend slept with my ex-boss—my _male_ ex-boss—and oh, by the way, he actually does that regularly with other guys, too, and I am trying to deal with it, okay? This is me dealing. This is me trying."

Chase bit down on his tongue to keep himself from snapping back. The ibuprofen, still stuck in the back of his throat, was doing nothing for his headache. "All right. Look, it's hardly even relevant who I've dated in the past. This is the first time in the four years we've known each other that you've had to deal with it. I don't see why you have to ignore it."

"If it's that unimportant, then why do you care if I ignore it?" Cameron shot back.

He couldn't hold back this time.

"Of course it's important!" Chase burst out, throwing his hands up. "Your husband died, and yeah, some day we're gonna have to talk about that. Maybe my ex-boyfriend shot himself two days after we broke up, and some day I'm gonna want to talk about that. It's part of who I am!"

"So you want to break up?" Cameron asked. "Is _that_ what you want?"

"No!" Chase said immediately, dropping his hands. "No, no, that's not what I want at all, I just—I don't see why it's such a big deal, is all."

"Okay, this is getting circular," Cameron sighed. She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "I'm not going to go through this forever. We can either break up, or you can deal with the fact that I can't deal with certain parts of you. Those are your options. Pick. One."

Chase felt the dread burst in his stomach and rush up his throat, his head spun, and he blurted out his first response before he could even think.

"I don't want to break up."

Cameron looked a little startled by his immediacy.

"Okay," she said slowly. "So we're just going to forget that this... happened. Right?"

Chase swallowed, tasting bile, ignoring the flashes of last night's dream in his mind. He inhaled. "Right."

Cameron let out a huge sigh of relief and hugged him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered, not letting go. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Welcome," Chase muttered, awkwardly putting an arm around her.

Then he saw his watch.

"Wednesday," he said quickly, dropping his arm and straightened.

Cameron pulled back, looking up at him in confusion. "What about it?"

"It's our day off. We were supposed to go sink shopping, and then out for dinner or something," Chase quickly reminded her. "Are we still on?"

"Uh—sure," Cameron said. "Definitely."

Chase flashed her a quick grin, ignoring the fact that he felt like something in his chest had just gone very brittle. "I've gotta run. I'll see you."

Cameron stood on her tip-toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

It occurred to him as he practically fled the on call room that the ibuprofen were no longer stuck to the back of his throat. That was just regular old bile.

oOo

He arrived just in time to see the end of the pre-op for the bowel resection, which was indeed being done by Ricky's friend Jake, and he filled himself in with the chart as Jake finished up. A glance at the board on his way to the patient's room had revealed that there was definitely no chance of him going down to see Natalie until at least six, when he had a forty minute break, or later tonight when he was on call. He supposed that he could always ask Wilson to check on her, but that was a little unnecessary. It had reached the point where he was dreaming about her—it was time to back off.

Jake finished and handed the additional notes to Chase as he walked out of the room, winking as he did so.

Chase tucked the notes into the back of the chart and then, giving the patient a nod, followed Jake out of the room.

"Dr. Chase!"

Chase turned to see Ricky coming out of a fist-bump-hi-five kind of thing with Jake, grinning at him.

"Morning," Chase said, nodding.

"Catch you later, man," Jake said, mussing Ricky's hair (Ricky elbowed him in the side in retaliation) before he walked away, a bounce in his step.

Chase raised his eyebrows. He'd been under the impression that they'd gone out last night with the intentions of getting completely wasted, but they were both entirely too perky for that to have actually happened.

"Any cool surgeries you can sneak me in on today, Dr. Chase?" Ricky asked, as Chase started walking in the direction of the OR. "I heard they got a guy with his arm broken in six different places last night. Six!"

"You were just in on a reconstructive surgery yesterday," Chase reminded him mildly.

"But hands are all about delicacy and finesse," Ricky said, shaking his head. "This arm? It's gonna be all out, with hammers and huge clamps and a _whole_ lot more blood."

Chase resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I'm not in on that surgery."

"Could you put in a good word for me?" Ricky asked hopefully.

Chase turned to stare at him.

"Right," Ricky said quickly. "Sorry."

Chase snorted to himself.

"And, uh, another thing?" Ricky said hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"I didn't mean to—I mean, when I asked you to come with us last night, I wasn't actually asking you to be my date," Ricky said. He looked slightly uncomfortable, and had lowered his voice as he spoke. "I don't do that."

"Ask men on dates?" Chase asked, amused.

"No," Ricky said immediately, and then his eyes widened. "I mean, no, I don't normally do that either, but I know you're... I mean. I know you're in a relationship, and I don't do that shit either, man."

Chase nodded, smirking. "Good call. Believe me when I say that Dr. Cameron would not be happy if you and I went on a date."

Ricky looked confused.

Chase wondered if he'd just inadvertently confirmed some rumor that was going around about him. Perhaps that he'd broken up with House and was now back with Cameron.

Whatever it was, Ricky got over it pretty quickly.

"Right," he said brightly, grin bouncing back into place as though it had never gone. "Put in a word for me on that surgery, all right? Tell them about my mad suturing skills!"

"Sure will," Chase said dryly.

Ricky bounded away in the other direction, still having entirely too much energy for a person who had supposedly gotten trashed the night before.

Chase glanced at the clock, determined that he had enough time before the surgery, and then headed off to the locker room to pop a few more ibuprofen.

oOo

Chase's surgeries, while not quite as boring as they had been last week, were still fairly dull. The bowel resection was done in a matter of an hour, and following that he assisted on a harvesting, which took up the rest of his afternoon. He swallowed ibuprofen at a rate that was probably corroding the lining of his stomach, sending it down with shots of coffee that sealed the deal on his impending ulcers, but his headache had started to recede, so it was worth it.

It was dull. Everything went smoothly, easily, and though it was somewhat boring it wasn't insufferable because his day off on Wednesday no longer seemed like the light at the end of a very long tunnel. He was kind of dreading spending an entire day with Cameron, if he was honest with himself.

And by some unfortunate series of events, he ended up spending his forty minute break with Foreman.

"So," he said, stirring the cup of hospital chili that he'd finally decided to brave. Kate had assured him last night that it wasn't completely terrible.

"So," Foreman replied.

Chase glanced at the pile of newspapers and trashy magazines that had accumulated on the table in this shoddy little break room. Was he that desperate to avoid a conversation with Foreman?

"How are things with House?" he asked.

Apparently, he wasn't that desperate. Yet.

"Boring as ever," Foreman answered. "He took on like, four cases in five days, so I think we've filled our quota for the month. And he's been cranky the last few days, so that definitely means we won't get a case for a while."

Chase tried to hide just how astonished he was at the sheer number of words he'd gotten out of Foreman with one question. Normally their conversations, if they didn't disintegrate into an argument, were akin to pulling teeth.

"Sorry," he said, wincing sympathetically.

Foreman nodded, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

"So what are you doing here at six?" Chase asked. He continued to stir the chili, using the excuse of letting it cool in order to avoid trying the new, meatless chili. "Normally, we'd have all left at five on the dot."

"Paperwork," was Foreman's less-than-pleased response.

Chase took the opportunity to take a bite of the chili, hiding a smirk.

It wasn't terrible. They'd put in more beans in the absence of the meat, which made for a different texture, but it wasn't terrible. The flavor was a little off.

"Why don't you get one of the new fellows to do it?" Chase asked, swallowing.

"Right," Foreman said dryly. "Because I can really see Cutthroat Bitch agreeing to do House's paperwork."

"The Mormon might," Chase offered. He took another bite of the chili.

"He's got a kid, has to be home by six," Foreman said, shaking his head. "I don't mind, really. It's not like I had anything else to do tonight."

Chase quirked an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Like you had anything to do last night," Foreman said irritably, glaring at him.

Chase grinned. "I got invited to go out with some interns."

"Please tell me you didn't go."

"I didn't. But I think I might have," Chase said thoughtfully. "I just hadn't been out of the hospital in four days, wanted to be home for a change—you know how it is. Anyway, I like my interns."

Foreman set down his sandwich. "Look, man, I don't want to sound like an asshole, but you're kind of hot gossip right now. I don't think that you should be going out with interns right now."

"I'm not going out—" Chase stopped himself, realizing that by 'going out with interns', Foreman hadn't meant 'dating'. "I'm not going to stop living because the whole hospital knows about my sex life."

Foreman blinked. "Wait—you mean that you and House are actually..."

Oh, hell.

"No." Chase resisted the urge to put his head in his hands and groan. "I'm still dating Cameron."

"But did you and House ever..." Foreman trailed off, looking highly uncomfortable.

"Fuck?" Chase suggested. "I don't see how that's your business. I don't see why you'd even care to know, actually."

Foreman paused. "Good point."

Chase smirked, though part of him now wanted to confirm that he and House had had sex just to torment Foreman with the mental images.

"So how are things with you and Cameron, then?" Foreman asked, picking up his sandwich again.

His thoughts went back to this morning's conversation.

"We're great," he answered, only lying a little. "She's taking me sink shopping on Wednesday, it's terribly exciting."

"Sink shopping?" Foreman repeated.

Chase shrugged. "She promised me an action movie in return."

Foreman snorted. "Sure she didn't just promise you some action in return?"

"Don't be jealous," Chase said mildly. "It doesn't become you, Foreman."

"Jealous? Why would—"

He stopped at the sound of the door opening, and they both turned to see Cameron poke her head in the door.

"Foreman?" she said, looking at him in surprise.

Foreman nodded in her direction. "Hey."

Cameron blinked, and turned to Chase. "Do you two normally eat dinner together?"

"I figured the rumor mill was getting bored with stories about me and House—spread the word, _Foreman_ and I are now passionate lovers." Chase rolled his eyes.

Foreman was visibly disturbed by this thought.

Cameron's lips tightened.

Okay, so maybe that hadn't been the best thing to say. Apparently even dreaming about House, however consistently, took a toll on your ability to hold in smart-ass remarks.

"Anyway," Cameron continued, apparently deciding to add that remark to her Things I Will Ignore About Chase list, "I wanted to say good night before I left, and I wanted to know if lunch was a possibility tomorrow."

This was what her mouth said. Her expression said, quite plainly: See? See the effort I'm putting in?

"It's a possibility," Chase told her, shrugging one shoulder. "Someone mentioned a brain surgery that I kind of want to get in on tomorrow, but if that doesn't pan out, there's a good chance I'll be free."

Cameron's smile was tight. "Great. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Night."

"Good night."

The door shut behind her, and Chase stared at his chili.

"I think 'great' may have been an exaggeration," Foreman put in dryly.

"I have to go check on a patient," Chase said shortly, standing up and grabbing his chili. "Have fun with your paperwork."

He thought he heard Foreman snickering behind him as he walked out, but he just threw the chili into the garbage bin with a little more force than necessary, and was satisfied with the noise that it made.

oOo

Chase hadn't just made up an excuse—he'd meant to go check on Natalie before his shift started for the night, and his encounter with Cameron had prompted him to do so.

Kate came out of the nursery, just as he was about to go in, and she smiled at him. "Hey there."

"Hi," he said, coming to a stop. He frowned, taking in her freshly-done makeup and tight bun. "Do they ever let you take a day shift?"

Kate gave him a wry smile. "I request nights. I'm taking classes during the day, working on becoming an RN."

Chase raised his eyebrows. "Good luck, then."

"Thanks." Kate grinned.

"How's Natalie doing?" Chase asked.

"She's out of the incubator, I can tell you that much." Kate glanced at the door into the nursery. "They're going to take her off the tube tomorrow, hopefully."

"Have her parents been in?"

Kate shook her head. "Not as far as I know. I heard you spent all of Saturday night with her, though."

Shit.

Chase felt his cheeks flush.

"Yeah, well, the little runt woke me up, screaming her head off at some ungodly hour of the morning," he said, in an attempt to make himself sound less involved than he'd actually been. "No reason at all."

"Did she want to be held?" Kate asked.

"I _was_ holding her."

"How'd you get her to stop, then?"

Chase shrugged. "Hell if I know. I was running all over, trying to figure out what was wrong, and then I picked her up again to take another look at her surgical site, and she was fine. Just like that, asleep in minutes."

But where he had been expecting sympathy, Kate was smirking at him.

He frowned. "What?"

"So she was crying, you put her down for a while, and then picked her up again and she was fine?" Kate asked.

Chase nodded slowly, wary of what she was going to say.

"Classic baby technique," she informed him. "Sometimes, you have to remind them how much they want _you._"

Chase blinked.

Kate grinned.

"Whatever," he said at last, shaking his head.

"Are you planning to spend another night here?" Kate asked. "I can grab you some blankets and pillows from the lounge, if you want."

Chase shook his head. "No, I'm on call tonight. Just wanted to stop in to say hi."

"Aw—that's so sweet!"

"Yeah, sweet," Chase muttered, going for the door. "That's me."

"I'll see you," Kate called after him.

Chase waved back at her without looking, turning the handle of the door into the nursery and pushing it open. His headache had finally faded, thank God, and with Natalie out of the incubator and things with Cameron doing better, he was in a relatively good mood. Even if he was going to be on call all ni—

He stopped.

"Hey, look what the dingo dragged in!" House said brightly, catching sight of him.

Chase's eyes narrowed as he realized that House was standing next to the crib that was in the same spot where Natalie's incubator had been only yesterday. "What are you doing here?"

His strides were long and fast, and he was across the room in a second. His fingers pulled the tag on the crib up so that he could read it.

"Looking for my next demon sacrifice. Duh."

Chase raised a cool eyebrow, adjusting his stance so that he was firmly between House and the crib. "I hear they like them fresh and bloody. Go swipe a few fresh ones from maternity."

House pointed to Natalie. "Is this your patient?"

"What's it to you?"

"Just making sure you're not her father," House said with a shrug. "You practically charged across the room to get between us."

Chase scowled. "She's my patient. She was conjoined to her sister—the sister didn't survive the separation, I've been following her progress."

House's eyes roved over him, making Chase suddenly self-conscious of how defensive his stance was, and then went back to the crib for a moment.

"Good," he finally said, nodding. "You don't need more gossip going around about you. I think it's enough, what with the whole bisexual thing and the whole sleeping-your-way-up-the-corporate-ladder thing, don't you? Wouldn't want to add little Chase Jrs. to the mix."

Chase folded his arms over his chest. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard Cameron wasn't too happy to hear about said gossip," House went on, ignoring the question.

"Leave," Chase said flatly.

House raised an eyebrow. "Unhappy enough to deny you some nookie, apparently."

"House. Go away."

"You didn't break up or anything, did you?"

Chase stared at him, repressing the urge to ask if House was getting all this information from Thirteen. He kept his expression carefully blank and bit down on his tongue. Hard.

House blew out a loud breath, casting his eyes up to the ceiling. "This is why I fired you, Chase. You're just no fun anymore."

_You mean I figured out how to deal with you_, Chase corrected mentally, but he didn't allow himself to say it out loud. He wouldn't give House the satisfaction.

"Fine," House said, tone long-suffering. "I'll go. But if Cameron's not putting out and you're ever in need of some desperate lovin', I know you didn't throw away that key that you stole from me."

"I didn't steal it, you gave it to me!" Chase protested before he could think about it.

A second later, his words turned around and smacked him in the face.

Dammit.

House had a shit-eating grin on his face, and reached out to ruffle Chase's hair as he limped past him. "Yeah, I knew you wouldn't have thrown it away. Such a good little puppy."

Chase tasted blood in his mouth, but his kept his teeth clamped around his tongue and merely glared at House as he left the room, and tried to ignore the fact that his headache was coming back.

He waited until House had shut the door behind him.

"God _dammit_," he swore, whirling around and swinging his fist at thin air.

His heart pounded and he spat out a few more curse words, careful to keep his voice to a soft growl as not to wake any of the babies. He let the emotions course through his veins. His head was starting to pound, and somewhere in the pit of his stomach, the fiery anger was starting to churn, taking on a vague nauseous edge—he trembled, his heart pounding, his ears roared. How was it that House always managed to make him so goddamn _angry?_

He hated losing control like this. Thank God this headache hadn't decided to come back while he'd been fighting with—

Everything in Chase came to a standstill.

House. When he'd been fighting with House, he'd been fine.

Chase couldn't see anything, didn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything but the horror that was flooding his veins as realization set in. It was too awful a possibility to even imagine. It couldn't be true. There was no way.

He was frozen for a second longer, and then he was bounding out of the room and down the hallway.

It got worse with every step.

Chase reversed his direction and went the other way, heart pounding as he took rapid steps and kept his eyes peeled for House, prepared to hide if he saw him, but with every step he took his headache lessened and his stomach settled. A step back and he was feeling worse. The horror was taking hold now, hooking it's cold claws into his lungs. He couldn't breathe.

This couldn't be happening. Dreams were dreams and real life was real life. This didn't happen in real life.

It wasn't happening.

But as Chase stood in the hallway, there was no denying that his headache was worsening with every step House took away from him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Warning: **The author still finds "your mom"/"your face" jokes funny.

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 10**

The night passed in a blur. Thankfully, his headache was not to the point where he couldn't concentrate (though it was a close thing) because it was twenty minutes into his on-call shift when they were suddenly flooded with overflow from Princeton General, victims of a bus crash into a crowded shopping center. Chase spent a few mindless hours suturing wounds before Peters caught sight of him and pushed him into a surgery for a man who had ended up with more organs outside of his body than inside. Normally, he would have been grateful for the opportunity. Tonight, he was just grateful that he hadn't accidentally killed someone.

Drifting, unpleasant memories of Kayla floated through his mind, giving him enough will to focus on what he was doing. He only lost himself in his head a few times.

By the time his shift ended at eight that morning, he collapsed onto the bottom bunk in an on call room and stared up. He was surprised that he wasn't more exhausted—but then again, the way his head was swimming (and pounding, although the headache had lessened, which probably meant that House had arrived at the hospital), he supposed it wouldn't have mattered how tired he was. How could he sleep, knowing that he was tied to his ex-boss?

Chase didn't even bother with the how. How this was even possible wasn't relevant right now. What mattered was what he was going to do about it.

What he knew was that every time he was in contact with House, it would get worse. Therefore, the obvious solution was to just not come in contact with House.

Easier said than done.

The problem that was really haunting him, though, was that this might never go away. In his dreams, he had just kissed House and then it had all went away—but there was no way he could do that here. Things had finally gotten back on track with Cameron, House had fired him, and Chase had made it very clear to everyone that he was done with that chapter of his life. He couldn't go back to it. And there was no way House was ever going to find out about this.

But if it never went away... He couldn't function like this. He wouldn't be able to avoid House for long, and then the headaches would get worse. He'd never be able to leave Princeton. It might come to him never being able to leave the hospital.

It was a nightmare.

Frankly, Chase didn't know how he was ever going to fall asleep. Ever. Part of him desperately wanted to, though, because at least then he'd be in his little fairy tale dream land where everything was perfect and nothing mattered.

"So pathetic," he muttered, staring up at the bunk above him.

Chase wondered just how many times he called himself pathetic every day. Probably not enough.

Resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't going to fall asleep, Chase sat up and slid his feet back into his sneakers. It would be better to keep busy, anyway, to keep his mind off of things.

oOo

In the spirit of keeping busy, Chase talked his way into the brain surgery that he'd heard about yesterday. This also gave him an excuse to back out of lunch with Cameron. It wasn't that he didn't want to have lunch with her—it was just that right now, he wanted something that would keep his mind busy, and while a conversation with Cameron would probably do that, he was also afraid of what he might accidentally let spill if he did get talking. So the plan for today was to keep his mouth shut and his brain busy.

He did go down to the ER to tell Cameron personally instead of just through a page, though.

Her lips thinned as she stared at him, taking in his news.

"We've got all tomorrow," he offered. "I really am sorry. They needed an extra pair of hands."

"Fine," she said tightly.

Chase winced. "See you tomorrow?"

Cameron nodded. "Yeah." She paused. "There's another rumor going around about you, just so you know."

"What is it this time?" Chase asked. He glanced around, but no one seemed to be whispering and pointing at him from any corners.

What could they possibly have _left_ to gossip over him about? Really. This was getting ridiculous.

"You don't have time to stay and talk, you have to get into your brain surgery," Cameron reminded him, her voice cool. "Ask someone during the surgery. I'm sure they've heard by now."

Chase's eyes narrowed, but he decided not to argue. From Cameron's tone, he was half-tempted to think she had started this new rumor herself as a way of passively aggressively getting back at him for sleeping with House. Not that he really thought she would do that.

He decided that he would wait until he heard what this new rumor was before he chose who to blame.

The surgery was not one of those surgeries in which everyone talked about the price of gas and which college their kid had just gotten into—it was quiet and tense. Chase happily lost himself in the silence. He was second on this surgery, and because the tumor was wrapped around the pituitary gland, it took two sets of hands to get into the brain, which meant that he needed to be absolutely focused on what he was cutting, what he was flagging, what he was clamping. He was more than happy to oblige.

Time flew by. His head had calmed somewhat over the course of the surgery, which was a relief, but also bad because it meant that House was closer. And if House was closer, then Chase might run into him, and that would suck all around. He couldn't see House right now. He couldn't.

Chase left the OR, the patient's tumor mostly removed save for a small portion that had wrapped itself around the brain stem, and was surprised to find Ricky waiting outside.

"Hey Dr. Chase!" Ricky said brightly.

"Hey, Ricky," Chase replied.

"Any cool surgeries you can get me in on?" Ricky asked hopefully.

Chase glanced at his watch. "Ricky, I've got an hour left on this shift and then I'm off until Thursday. My first day off in over two weeks. If you want a surgery, start charting for Nurse Brenda and she might be able to get you on something tomorrow."

"Nurse Brenda doesn't really like me very much, actually."

Chase rolled his eyes. "That's the way she is with everyone, trust me."

Ricky shook his head. "No, believe me. The second day I was here, she sent me off to get more suturing kits and I accidentally locked myself in the supply closet for four hours. She wouldn't believe me when I finally got out, and she's hated me ever since. She's the one who put me on the Daily House Report thing."

Chase snickered.

Ricky smacked him on the shoulder. "I'm serious! She hates me!"

"I'm sure."

"Are you sure there isn't _anything_ you could put me on?" Ricky asked.

Chase raised an eyebrow. "Why? Are you avoiding something else?"

There was a moment's pause, in which Ricky looked very, very guilty.

"Someone else," he muttered at last.

"Sorry," Chase said again. "There's really nothing I can do for you."

Ricky let out a long-suffering sigh. "That's okay. I'll just have to suck up to one of my other residents."

"Good to know that I'm number one on your list of Residents Who Easily Cave," Chase said wryly.

"Nah. You're just the one I like best." Ricky shrugged. "Besides, no one else is gonna pester you for surgeries at the moment, so I figure there's less competition."

"Why is no one else going to ask me?" Chase asked curiously.

Ricky waved a hand. "You know, rumors going around."

Chase remembered Cameron's words from this morning.

"Is it true that there's a new rumor going around about me?" he asked.

Ricky nodded. "You didn't hear? You now have a secret love child that you've been visiting every night in the nursery for the last few weeks."

Chase was about to ask him what the rumor actually was, taking Ricky's answer as a sarcastic exaggeration, when he remembered his conversation with House last night.

"Tell me you're joking," he said slowly.

He was going to _kill_ House. Slowly. With a goddamn spoon.

Ricky grinned. "I know, right? It's like something out of the National Enquirer. People here are crazy."

"Yeah," Chase said through gritted teeth. "Crazy."

And then, the most unfortunate thing of all the unfortunate things that could have possibly happened in that moment: House walked around the corner.

Chase stormed over to him, fuming, his plan to avoid House beyond recall.

"What the bloody hell are you _playing_ at?"

House looked down at him, expression amused. "Feeling British today, are we? Jolly good, sir."

It only served to further infuriate him that House seemed to have no concern for the fact that Chase was about to lose control. He clenched his fists, knowing that of all the things he could do, that might be the worst.

His nails dug into his palms, and he attempted to control his breathing.

"Look, I get it," he said in a low voice. "You got bored, you needed to fuck up someone's life, and hey, I was already halfway there so why not just _finish it off?_"

House raised his eyebrows. "I'm afraid I rather don't know what you're talking about, good sir."

"Don't give me that bullshit. I know—"

"Really." House said came out of his mock British accent. "I'll take credit for whatever it is, but you've got to tell me what it is first so I can properly gloat."

"The rumors," Chase ground out, "that I have a love child I've been making daily visits to for the last few weeks. You're really going to tell me that you didn't start them?"

"Nope." House shook his head. "Wasn't me."

"Right. Because you didn't imply that about Natalie _just_ last night or anything," Chase said sarcastically.

"Natalie?"

"The baby I was with last night."

"How would I know that you've been spending your nights with some screaming little parasite?" House asked. An amused look came over his face. "Actually, that's kind of pathetic. Seriously, Chase?"

"Fuck off," Chase spat, and he made to push House out of the way. House was quicker and grabbed his wrists, hauling Chase forward and making him stumble. Chase wrenched himself free, falling back and almost running into the wall.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ricky watching him with wide eyes.

He let out a nonsensical, snarl-like noise and stormed off.

_Fuck._

oOo_  
_

Touching House had been, decidedly, a bad idea.

Chase swallowed four more ibuprofen, unplugged his alarm clock, and curled into a ball.

oOo

Three in the morning and Chase found himself parked outside of House's apartment. He put the car in park and killed the engine. His head had stopped pounding and the nausea skirting around the edges of his stomach had disappeared. He unbuckled his seatbelt and slouched down in the front seat, pushing the seat as far back as it would go and grabbing his coat out of the back seat, which he draped over his face to block out the light of the street lamp above.

He'd learned the first time around. House wasn't going to discover him in a pathetic mess on his front stoop, this time.

And he sank into sleep at last, part of him wondering if he'd remembered to set the alarm on his cell phone to wake him up before House left for work and saw him here. He really hoped so.

oOo

"A week and a half?" Chase repeated incredulously.

House pointed to the calendar. "That's what it says, blondie."

Chase shook his head. "But it doesn't make any sense. The last time was two days, and the time before that was five days."

"Obviously, time's passing faster between each dream." House stared at the calender, his eyes narrowed slightly. "But why?"

"Maybe it's speeding up because we're supposed to get to some date?" Chase suggested.

"It's a dream—if we're supposed to be at some specific date, why aren't we just there? It's a goddamn dream, time doesn't have to pass linearly," House argued. He sat down in his chair, exhaling in frustration.

"So when we were supposed to be here this morning, why didn't we just appear in the hospital instead of back in your apartment? Why waste time having me get the sudden urge to go to the hospital, convincing you, driving here?" Chase asked, although it was more that he was musing aloud. "It's almost like there's... rules that have to be followed. The dream—whatever—it couldn't just stick us together. It had to make it so that I was sick as a dog whenever I wasn't near you, so that I'd have to be near you, so we'd get together. It had to convince us to go to the hospital."

House raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh-huh. And what else have you figured out, Sherlock?"

"Don't mock me, you rumor-starting bastard," Chase said, although there was none of the anger in his tone that would have been there in real life. "Speaking of which, I owe you this." He thumped House solidly on the chest with his palm. "You ass."

"I didn't start the damn rumor!" House said irritably, giving him a dark look. "Jesus. First you, then Wilson, then Cuddy, and now you _again?_ That's just unfair."

Chase's subconscious apparently thought that he would like to hear that he hadn't been alone in thinking that House had starting the rumor, and that he'd been thoroughly yelled at for it. It did make him feel better. Maybe his subconscious, despite the fact that it was making no sense, wasn't all that bad.

"So who started it, if it wasn't you?" Chase asked. He was suddenly curious as to what his subconscious would say.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" House snapped.

All right, so apparently his subconscious was done being nice to him.

Chase put a hand on House's head and rubbed, a grin spreading across his face as House jerked away, annoyed.

"Paws to yourself, wombat."

And then it struck him.

"It's because we have free will!" he blurted out.

House eyed him warily, hand ready to defend his head again. "What?"

"This dream," Chase said excitedly. He sat down on the desk, leaning forward and looking straight into House's eyes. "What makes this dream different. Most dreams just happen around you and you can't control it, but we have control over this. They can't just plunk us down in the hospital, they have to convince us to go."

"You haven't forgotten that this is just a dream, right?" House asked dubiously.

Chase glared at him, irritated that House wasn't as excited as he was. "You're the one who wanted patterns."

"That's not a pattern, it's a Stephen King synopsis."

Chase sighed, sitting back. "All right. Fine. What's your idea?"

"Don't have one," House said, also sitting back in his chair. He spun so that he was staring at the calendar again.

"Why are you so determined to find a pattern?"

"Everything has a pattern." House closed his eyes, exhaling and tilting his head back. "Your neurons fire in patterns. Neurotransmitters are released in patterns. Hillocks generate action potentials in patterns. Are we sensing a pattern to the patterns, here?"

"Weren't you on about meaning, last year?" Chase asked, frowning. "Does meaning now derive from patterns, or have you dropped that idea completely now?"

"I'd rather not think about the meaning behind this dream, thanks," House answered dryly, not opening his eyes.

Chase considered for a moment.

"Yeah. That might be for the best."

"And if I figure out what the pattern is, then I can put an end to it," House added.

What?

"End it?" Chase said blankly.

The thought of these dreams ending made something in his chest tighten.

House opened his eyes and spun to face him, bouncing his cane back and forth between his hands absently. "It has to end. You know that."

"I—" Chase swallowed, bits and pieces of the brittleness in his chest crumbling away. "Yeah. I know."

Judging by the way House's blue eyes were fixed on him, he wasn't fooling his subconscious.

Surprise, surprise.

"It's not healthy, Chase," House said, in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. "You've got a girlfriend. I've got to move on. These dreams have to end."

"Yeah," Chase agreed, but the word was empty.

"You said it yourself, earlier," House pointed out. "You're about a fuck-up away from disaster. It doesn't need to be me."

Chase shook his head, the words spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them. "You're not fucking anything up, I swear. You're making it easier."

"Exactly."

"And what am I supposed to do in real life?" Chase asked, the sudden rush of desperation overwhelming him. "I can't stay away from you!"

"It has to end," House said firmly, as though he hadn't even heard Chase.

Despair washed over him, sucking him under, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

He brought his hands up to his head, pressing his fingers against his temples, and forced himself to take in a deep breath.

Okay. Okay, it wasn't the end of the world. The dreams would only end, supposedly, if House found the pattern in them. The way things were going, that wasn't likely to happen any time soon. Why waste time worrying about something that was weeks, possibly months away? He couldn't think about that. He would just focus on what was now and what was here.

He opened his eyes and let his hands fall to his lap. He felt oddly still and empty.

"So you want to spend tonight just staring at this calendar, hoping you'll come up with this pattern?" he asked, forcing his tone to be dry.

"Got any better ideas?" House asked. His grin was lecherous, and he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Right on cue, Cuddy stuck her head in.

"Don't think I didn't notice that your clinic duty wasn't done yesterday, House," she said sharply, giving him a stern look.

House grinned brightly, waving. "Hey Cuddles! Want to see just how fast I can bend Chase over this desk?"

"Leave Dr. Chase alone," Cuddy snapped. "Do your job."

"Are you sure? We've been practicing..." House offered in a sing-song voice.

"Touch me and die," Chase said under his breath.

"Clinic. Duty."

"But's a dreeeeeaaaam," House whined, drawing out the last word for at least three seconds.

"So do it now, and I won't make you do it in real life."

Chase snorted.

House raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, I'm not inclined to believe a figment of a dream. Somehow. I can't quite explain it..."

"I'll make this dream end," Cuddy threatened.

"Right. That's even scarier," House said, rolling his eyes.

Chase, though, was interested.

"You can do that?" he asked, turning around.

"I run this hospital—if there's a dream taking place here, I can certainly end it," Cuddy snapped, clearly annoyed that he would even ask such a question.

"How?"

House whacked him on the leg with cane. "Don't feed into her power trip."

Cuddy folded her arms over her chest. "Why do you want to know?"

Chase shrugged. "Curious."

"I'm not doing my clinic duty," House put in loudly.

"You have until the count of five."

House spun around in his chair. "La tee daaaa!"

"One."

House continued to spin around, using his cane to push himself in circles.

"Two."

Chase bit his lip. "You're not going to end it permanently, are you?"

"She can't actually end it, you moron," House put in carelessly.

"Three."

"What if she can?" Chase asked him, feeling the first stirrings of fear. "What if she really does end it, right here?"

House stuck out his cane and stopped himself with a thwack as his cane hit the side of his desk. He looked up at Chase. "Then it's for the best. We just talked about this."

Chase swallowed. "But—"

"Four."

"I don't want to—"

And then the desk gave way and he was falling, the world dissolving around him, and there was no bottom in the darkness.

oOo

Chase woke with a start.

He looked around wildly, heart racing, his mind swimming, and something—something vibrating in his pocket.

It took him a moment to realize that his cell phone, and he had it out and open before he could even begin to figure out what the hell had just happened in his dream.

"Hello?"

He was out of breath. His heart raced.

"Chase?"

His mind quickly caught up—Cameron. Lovely.

"Hey," he said, taking in a deep breath. "What's up?"

"Where are you?" Cameron asked. "I'm at your apartment, and you're... not."

Chase blinked, and then abruptly remembered their shopping trip for the day. In a moment of panic, he drew the phone away from his ear and looked at the time, but it was only seven in the morning. House wouldn't be up yet. And Cameron should definitely not be at his apartment at this hour.

"I'm at the hospital," he lied. He reached down and pulled the lever under his chair, sitting up. "I thought we weren't going shopping until this afternoon?"

"Oh, you didn't take on an extra shift this morning, did you?" Cameron asked, and he could see her wincing.

"No, I just had to finish something up," Chase told her quickly. "Why? What's going on?"

"I'm covering for someone tonight, so I was thinking we could go shopping this morning and do lunch, and maybe take a rain check on the movie?"

"You took on an extra shift?" Chase repeated disbelievingly. "You just asked me—after everything you told me on Monday about putting in more effort, and now you're taking on an extra shift _t__oday?_ We had this planned for a week!"

"Sandy Liven's son got into a car crash last night, I was the only one who could take over for her," Cameron explained, her voice impatient. "I'm _sorry_."

"Am I supposed to know who Sandy Liven is?"

"I work with her!" Cameron said incredulously. "Do you ever listen to a word I say?"

"Cameron—"

"Look," she interrupted, her voice heavy. "Just—come back to your apartment, we'll go shopping, we'll go out to lunch... It'll be fine. Okay?"

Chase stopped, and for the very first time since waking up he was hit with the full impact of what was going on. Cuddy had ended his dream—or it could have been a coincidence, but either way, that had been a horrible way to end a dream, and there was the distinct possibility that he might never have another dream with House again. And now Cameron had changed their plans. And despite the fact that she was being hypocritical about this, she was at least trying. He should try, too.

"Okay," he sighed, letting his head fall back. "Okay. Where do you want to go shopping?"

There was a pause.

"Well, you know furniture shopping in Princeton is an absolute joke, so I was thinking of trying a few places in Trenton," she said at last.

"Trenton?" Chase repeated faintly.

It was suddenly occurring to him that the list of places that he could go was very, very limited. Now that he'd spent the night in close proximity to House, it was unlikely that he was going to be able to get more than a few blocks away from him and still be able to function.

Which pretty much meant that his day with Cameron was off.

He probably would have felt more guilty about this before, but now he was still feeling too pissed about the shift she'd taken tonight to bother with it.

"Listen," he said, "why don't we just call the whole thing off? I think I have Saturday free, we can go then."

"Wait—Chase, no, c'mon," Cameron said, her voice suddenly pleading. "I'm sorry about taking the shift, I am, please don't—"

"I just don't think it's a good idea right now," Chase said, cutting her off. "I'm not feeling well. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

He hung up before she could reply.

And then out of the corner of his eye, there was movement. House's door was opening.

Chase had the car out of the parking spot and halfway down the street in ten seconds flat.

oOo

Chase supposed that it might be rather creepy, the way that he was following House. Tracking him, really. He'd idled on the street behind House's apartment, waiting until he felt the dull pressure in his head start to gather, pinpointing behind his eyes in a pounding, blinding move, and then he began driving to the hospital. If only he were a bounty hunter and House were his prey—then maybe he'd have a use for this House-compass that he was developing. Instead, he was left to follow House to the hospital.

Unsurprisingly, the first place House went was his office. It was entirely too early for any of his fellows to be in—House himself wasn't usually in for another three hours. Chase had no idea what would get him up this early in the morning, especially when there was apparently no pressing reason for him to be up. Could his leg be hurting more than usual? He'd definitely been known to come into the hospital at all hours of the day, even on his days off, just to pace and snarl at people.

However, Chase didn't concern himself with it. He was still tired after only getting four hours of sleep, and more than that, he was desperate to see if he could go back to his dream. The way it had ended left him with a cold, sick feeling in the back of his stomach, and the thought of that being the end of it all...

He found the on call room nearest to House's office, which left him with a manageable pressure in his head and not a full-blown headache, and pushed open the door, only to find—

"Dr. Chase!" Ricky waved.

Ricky was laying on the bottom bunk, a straw in hand, and his friend Jake was on the top bunk with a yo-yo. It looked like they were in the middle of some sort of game, but Chase couldn't imagine what it was.

"Hey, man," Jake greeted with a wave of his own.

"What are you guys doing up here?" Chase asked. Surgery was on the second floor. This was the fourth floor.

"Just got off of rounds," Jake said with a smirk. He let the yo-yo go over the side of the bunk, and Ricky immediately brought the straw up to his mouth and blew, apparently trying to blow at the yo-yo when it descended to his level, but he wasn't quick enough and the yo-yo went back up into Jake's palm.

Chase refrained from asking. "And all the on call rooms on the second floor are full?"

Ricky nodded. "Yep. It's Safer Sex Week in the clinic, they're giving out condoms like lollipops."

"Flavored ones, too," Jake added.

Chase held back a groan. Great.

"All right," he sighed. "I'll see you around."

"No, no!" Jake protested. "Trust me, you're never going to find an on call room right now without going down to the maternity ward, and believe me man, that is a _scary_ place. You can crash on the top bunk—here." He started climbing down.

Chase almost refused, but then he considered the fact that any other on call room in the hospital was likely to be too far away from House to get any sleep. "Thanks," he said, nodding at Jake as he landed on the ground.

"No problem."

"You can play BJs with us, if you want," Ricky offered.

Chase assumed the BJs was whatever game they had been playing before with the straw and yo-yo. With a feeling that he was going to regret asking, he opened his mouth. "What's BJs?"

"Move over, fat ass," Jake muttered, pushing Ricky as he moved over to make room for Jake.

"BJs is a game we made up back in med school," Ricky explained as Jake clamored in next to him. "It's short for blow jobs. The object is to blow hard enough and aim well enough to make the yo-yo swing off-course, to the point where it won't bounce back up."

Chase climbed up to the top bunk. "I see."

Yeah, he regretted asking.

"You can play, if you want."

"I think I'll sleep for a bit, thanks," Chase said, politely declining. He didn't bother with the sheets or anything, just flopped down on the bed, head on the pillow, and closed his eyes.

"All right."

"Night, man."

"Mm," Chase said.

It was silent for a moment.

"Hey, gimmie more pillow," one of them whispered.

Rustling, and then silence descended again.

"Your straw is poking me in uncomfortable places, man."

"Sorry."

Another period of silence.

"Some nurse got sick in the ER this morning. All over. She'd had that new chili from the cafeteria for dinner, too."

"That's disgusting."

"Your face is disgusting."

"Your mom's disgusting."

"Your mom's mom is disgusting."

"Your mom's Facebook is disgusting."

"You're mom's saggy old vagi—"

"Hey guys?" Chase cut in, raising his head slightly so that his voice wouldn't be muffled by the pillow. "Could you hold off for, like, five minutes, until I'm asleep?"

"Oh, shit. Sorry about that," Ricky apologized quickly. "We'll be quiet."

"Silent."

"As mice."

"As the grave."

"As your mom's grave."

Chase put his head down, closing his eyes and willing sleep to come. He needed to see House again. Just once more.

oOo

He woke to a pounding headache and groaned, curling in on himself slightly. Where was House? The last thing he'd known had been falling through the desk as the dream had dissolved around him into nothing, and...

And with a start, Chase's eye snapped open and he knew that he wasn't dreaming. He was in the on call room. And his head was throbbing again, which meant that House was on the move, which meant that he had to move. As things were getting worse with every moment that it was taking him to come to consciousness, it was worsening, and that meant that House was walking somewhere and he had to follow fast before he ended up throwing up everywhere.

Forcing himself up, Chase crawled down the bunk bed and was surprised to note that Ricky and Jake had left. They said that they'd had an hour before they had to be anywhere, and Chase couldn't have dozed off for more than five minutes. Right?

He glanced down at his watch, and his brain froze.

More than three hours had passed since he'd laid down. And that meant that he hadn't had any dreams.

It was a sucker punch to the stomach, and he stood stock still in front of the door as the world reeled around him. It couldn't be over. It couldn't be. Three hours of sleep didn't necessarily mean that he would enter REM sleep, he probably hadn't gotten that far with Ricky and Jake chattering away beneath him. It was a fluke. It couldn't be over yet, not like that, not before he had the chance to say goodbye.

And then his stomach began to churn and the pain in his head increased sharply, reminding him that he had somewhere to be.

Chase pushed the falling, bottomless despair into the back of his mind. He had to find House now, he'd worry about it later.

He burst out into the hallway, taking a right toward diagnostics, but got three steps before he turned around and went in the opposite direction. His pace was quick, making sure that he was moving faster than House, and he wasn't halfway down the hallway before he felt his headache start to recede. He was on this side of the hospital. Where would he be?

The clinic, and the auditorium where he'd been having his new fellows meet were both on this side of the hospital. Of the two, Chase would put him in the auditorium first, and that was where he headed. He refused to think about the fact that the dreams might have ended permanently. He would worry about now, now, and later, later.

House was not in the auditorium. Foreman and the new fellows were, though.

His headache was increasing by the moment, faster than it should have been if House was only walking somewhere, and the nausea was starting to return. What if House was driving somewhere? Where would he be going? What was he going to do if House was going home, if he couldn't get to his car fast enough and he ended up collapsing in the hallway...

Chase thought about going off in search of House by himself for a moment. And then he realized that his ability to think was being seriously compromised by his headache, and decided to ask instead.

"Brennan and I will do the neurological..." Foreman trailed off in the middle of what he was saying as Chase entered. "Can I help you, Dr. Chase?"

"I'm looking for House," Chase said, hoping that his voice sounded normal. He attempted to lean casually against the wall, but his head was positively _throbbing_ and his stomach was starting to churn unpleasantly. He skin felt too hot. "You know where he went?"

"We'd all like to know," one of the fellows whose name Chase didn't know said.

Chase felt a flicker of panic. "What do you mean?"

"Guy in a suit came in, they talked, House left with him," Foreman said, sounding irritated. "What did you want him for?"

"I need to talk to him," Chase forced out, and he hoped that his voice was louder than the whisper than he thought it was. Dizziness slammed into him and fell against the wall as the world rocked violently. His stomach roiled and his throat felt like it was closing up. "I need House."

"Is he okay?" Kutner asked.

"Chase?" Foreman's voice came, and Chase swore it was the first time he'd ever heard real concern in Foreman's voice.

"M'fine," he choked out, but bile came rushing up his throat and he doubled over, spitting it out. The world spun and he stumbled, feeling the hardness of the wall or the floor or something, his knees tangling together, his body knocking into something. His stomach turned and he twisted his head, vomiting and gasping for air at the same time. His skin was too hot, he couldn't see, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't control his limbs.

Hands were grabbing at him and he was being twisted in space, heavy and sick. Pulled apart. He felt the edges of his consciousness slipping away and fought for a moment, but then House flashed before his eyes and he gave in, sinking down into the darkness. Let it come. He was tired of fighting. Why was he fighting in the first place?

Voice shouted.

He let go.


	11. Chapter 11

**Worlds Away From Who I Was**

**Chapter 11**

When Chase opened his eyes, the first thing that he registered was House.

He stared, unwilling to believe it was real.

He was dreaming. Of House.

House's eyes were wide, staring back at him from his chair.

Chase opened his mouth to speak, but the words jammed up in the back of his throat and nothing came out. He couldn't think of anything to say that would fully express how utterly stunned he was to be back in this dream. He was still sitting on the desk and House was still sitting in his chair, like nothing had ever interrupted it.

House's eyes broke away, sweeping over him and taking in every detail.

"I thought—I thought it was over," Chase managed to choke out, half breathless in disbelief. His mind was reeling. It wasn't over, the dreams were over, he still had House—the rush of relief that swept over him left him panicked and giddy, and the words spilled out before he could even think about them. "I thought the dreams were over and I was never going to see you again, I thought I wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye, to apologize, to say that I love you, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't want you to leave, please don't leave..."

Soundlessly, House rose and pulled Chase forward, off the desk, and against him into a hug and did not let go, his grip tight. "Shut up," he whispered, his breath blowing away the hair over Chase's ear, making him shiver. "Shut up, you stupid wombat, I don't care."

Chase pressed his lips shut, closing his eyes and burying his face into House's neck. He took in deep breaths and felt House's arms tighten, and he responded in turn, feeling reassured as House's body did not dissolve away into nothing. He was here. They were here. The dreams hadn't ended and they were both here and it was going to be okay.

It was nothing like the I'm-sorry-you're-dying hug. It was everything that he needed in that exact moment.

Then he snorted softly, letting a little more of his weight fall against House.

"This is so pathetic," he mumbled into House's shoulder.

"You spend the night with patients who aren't even dying," House muttered. "Of course you're pathetic."

"Yeah, but this is _really_ pathetic," Chase said, bringing his head up and letting his arms fall away.

House let him pull back slightly, but left his arms still loosely wrapped around him. His eyebrows were raised in askance. Or perhaps in agreement.

"I'm probably dying in reality," Chase told him, tone matter-of-fact. "I should be more worried about that than I currently am. But I'm happy here, in my little fantasy world. These stupid dreams and Natalie and—you know, everyone says the problem is I don't get attached to anything, but you know what the real problem is? Once I get attached to something, I can't ever let it go. I'm worse than Cameron when it comes to getting attached to things. That's why it's easier to just not care at all."

He closed his eyes and shook his head, and then opened his eyes to meet House's.

"_Your_ little fantasy world?" House asked.

Chase waved a hand. "This. These dreams I can't stop having."

House's eyes narrowed slightly, and he stood a little straighter. "These are _my_ dreams. Not yours."

What?

"House," Chase said slowly. "I'm dreaming right now. You're just part of my dream. That's all you've ever been."

"Oh, that's cute," House said, and suddenly he was grinning. "The figment of my imagination is accusing me of not being real—talk about your existentialism paradox, huh?"

"A figment of your imagination?" Chase repeated. "House, I exist. This is my dream! You're the one who's a product of patterns of neurotransmitters flying across synapses, not me. You're my subconscious."

"I'm laying on a couch, taking a nap while John the BAMF CIA dude is being treated for radiation poisoning." House's voice had taken on an edge to it. "This is my dream."

"I'm laying in a hospital bed back at PPTH, probably dying because _you_ had to go off with some bastard in a suit," Chase snapped. "My dream."

"The bastard in the suit was Agent Smith," House told him, in a tone that suggested Chase had suddenly become mentally retarded. "Do you remember that? And then we flew off in the big cool helicopter, and met really hot CIA chick and Mayo Asshole... Ringing any bells?"

"Where are you getting all this from?" Chase asked incredulously. "Of course I don't remember it, it didn't happen. I spent last night parked outside of your apartment, followed you to the hospital, took a nap with Ricky and Jake, and then I passed out like an idiot in front of all your fellows."

"Who the hell is Jake?"

"Ricky's friend." Chase stared at him. "Are you really going to pretend that you don't know who he is? You're my _subconscious_. The whole point of this dream is for me to realize that I'm dreaming and deal with it."

"You're—not—dreaming. I'm the one who's—"

oOo

Chase barely had two seconds to readjust to being back in the dream before House was shaking him.

"How did you know that Chase was dying?" he demanded.

"What?"

"How did you know that Chase was dying?" House repeated, giving Chase a rough shake. "How did I know?"

Chase jerked out of his grip, hurrying backwards and putting a good meter of space between them. "What the hell are you on about?"

"You—my subconscious. You told me that Chase had collapsed in front of my fellows and is currently dying back at PPTH," House said impatiently, leveling a finger at him. "Then I wake up and Wilson's calling me to tell me what I somehow _already know_. How?"

"Because I _am_ Chase!" Chase exploded, his confusion bursting into anger. "That's what happened, you're _my_ subconscious, of course you know what happened!"

"You—are—not—real," House said slowly, furiously. "You're a part of my brain. Now tell me how the _hell_ I managed to know that Chase is dying."

"I am a real person, House, you're the one—"

And then Chase stopped. It hit him.

"Holy shit," he whispered. He stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch, his mind reeling.

"Yes, you're imaginary. I'm glad we're finally on the same page."

"No." Chase quickly shook his head. He looked up at House as everything came together in his head, all the details clicked into place. "No, neither one of us is the dream—we're both real. We're sharing this dream. All this time, we've been sharing this dream."

His words hung in the air for a moment, and he fixed his gaze on House, desperate for him to understand. It made sense.

House, though, was not impressed. "Noooo, you're _imaginary_. Not real. A dream. A product of my very annoying subconscious."

Dammit.

"I'm not!" Chase insisted, impatient for House to understand what he was saying, the excitement he was feeling. "Listen—that's why you were down in the nursery, right? I told you that Natalie was one of my patients and you wanted to see if it was true, and those times when I would go to sleep and didn't dream, that was because you weren't asleep too, and—"

"Oh, for the love of—"

Chase's eyes widened. "House, you have to come back to PPTH."

"I'm a little busy right now," House said irritably. "You know, the CIA kidnapping me and everything."

Chase stopped, exhaling.

He should have known that getting House to believe in something that wasn't scientifically proven would be harder than that.

"Do you remember how I got sick whenever I wasn't near you in real life?" he asked, forcing his voice to slow down and be calm. "At the beginning of this dream?"

House snorted. "You're not seriously going to tell me—"

"I've had a permanent headache for a week," Chase stated, cutting him across in the same calm tone.

"Right."

"I spent last night camped out in my car outside your apartment so that I could get some sleep," Chase continued evenly. "And then you flew off with the CIA, apparently, which is why I collapsed. And as soon as you come back, I'll be fine."

"And I'm supposed to believe you... why?"

"I was right about me being sick in the first place, wasn't I?" Chase pointed out.

"Prove it," House challenged.

Chase stared. "How? I'm laying on a hospital bed, dying."

"Tell me something I couldn't possibly know about you, and then I'll check it when I wake up." House sat down in the chair behind his desk and turned his head, looking at something on his computer. "Or, alternatively, you could tell me why a month and a half have passed since we last checked the date."

"A month and a—" Chase stopped himself mid-sentence and let out the rest of the air in his lungs. He took in a deep breath. "Okay. Fine. Give me a moment to think of something."

He couldn't tell House anything about Natalie, he supposed, because House knew about Natalie and would probably just assume that he'd managed to deduce it himself. Ricky was also out, too, as was Jake. Any surgeries that he'd done recently were out, as he had no idea what House knew of his schedule. It had to be something recent. Something personal. Something specific.

"Cameron and I were supposed to go shopping for a new sink today," he finally said, deciding that what the hell, his life was more important than the dignity he was losing by letting House in on his failure of a love life. "And then we were going to go out for dinner and a lame action movie. She called to reschedule this morning, said she wanted to go shopping in Trenton in the morning, do lunch, and then take a rain check on the movie. I told her I wasn't feeling well and that we could go on Saturday instead, if I had the day off. Call Cameron, ask her about it."

House raised an eyebrow. "Wow. I thought it was just the rumor mill being it's usual melodramatic self when I heard that you and Cameron were on the verge of breaking up, but I guess they were actually right about something, huh? Gee. You two didn't last very long at all..."

"You're not going to call, are you?" Chase sighed.

"It's not my fault your fair bonnie lass has my number blocked."

"Fine. I'll find someone to call you," Chase decided, pushing himself up off the couch.

"You think of more and more creative ways to waste your time every day," House called after him.

Chase flipped him off as he left the office, not looking back.

Screw House. He was going to show him—House was so stuck in his damn scientific principles that he'd rather let a man die than bend them, even for a moment. This was right. It had to be. These dreams weren't like all the other dreams he'd had, they were real. They made sense. He just had to find someone else in this hospital (because if he and House were sharing this dream, he was willing to bet that everyone else in this dream was also convinced they were just having their own, ordinary dreams) and he'd tell them to—

"Jake?" he said, losing his train of thought completely at the sight of Ricky's friend.

Jake stopped the wheelchair he was pushing to look at him, and he immediately face-palmed. "Oh, shit, man. Go away."

Chase frowned. "What?"

"God dammit," Jake swore, letting his hand fall away. He looked frustrated. "My shrink says I'm not supposed to be dreaming about dead people anymore."

"I'm not dead," Chase stated, but he couldn't help the touch of uncertainty.

"Well, yeah, but you're dying, man," Jake said, leaving the 'duh' unspoken. "Same difference. He's gonna kill me."

"Sorry?" Chase offered.

"Nah. Whatever. Wanna play BJs now?" Jake asked, brightening.

"I'd like to know why you're pushing around an empty wheelchair," Chase answered, nodding at the wheelchair.

Jake gave it a push and it went rolling away. "I was pushing some old man to the cafeteria, but he just vanished a few minutes ago. No biggie. BJs?"

Chase shook his head. "No thanks. I need you to do me a favor, actually."

"You want me to ask Ricky out for you?" Jake asked. His grin was salacious, and his eyes traveled down Chase's body for the briefest of moments. "'Cause I gotta tell you, Dr. Chase, he's as straight as a ramp. Me, though, I'm about as straight as a paper clip. What d'you say?"

"A paper clip?"

Jake nodded. "Yeah. You know, they can totally be straight one moment, and then you can bend it up and make it really twisty? Until it snaps, but that wasn't what I was getting at."

"Right. Anyway," Chase went on, "I need you to do me a favor. Can you call Dr. House, when you wake up?"

There was a pause.

"Dr. House, Head of Diagnostics, once locked Ricky in a supply closet, Dr. House?" Jake appeared to be desperately hoping that it was some other Dr. House.

Chase nodded. "Yeah, that one. I know it's crazy, but trust me, he's the only one who can save me. Use my cell phone, call him up and ask for his help."

"Why do you have his number on your cell phone?" Jake asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I..."

That was a very good point, actually.

"He's my ex-boss," Chase finally settled on saying. "Good to keep him on call."

"So that means you're single?"

"No," Chase said immediately, but then he remembered this morning's conversation. "Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Can we talk about this when I'm not dying?"

Jake shrugged. "Sure."

"Hey—manwhore!"

Chase reflexively turned to look at the same time Jake did.

House smirked. "Heh. And you both look."

"What do you want?" Chase asked tiredly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jake start to leave.

"Stay," House ordered, and Jake stopped. He turned to Chase. "Differential for a man, roughly forty years old—"

"House, I don't work for you anymore," Chase told him, cutting him off.

"And I'm a surgical intern, dude," Jake put in, sounding a little panicked at the thought of having to do a differential with House. "We don't diagnose, we chop on the dotted lines."

"Consider this an education, then. Forty-year-old man, spent the last seven months in Bolivia, doing we're-not-allowed-to-know-what. Presented with acute weight loss, abdominal pain, and really, really nasty peeling skin. Seriously nasty. Moving into gnarly territory."

"This is your CIA agent?" Chase asked.

House nodded. "Nothing better to do. I'm napping on the bed next to him, at the moment."

"What time is it, in the real world?"

"You should know that. You're my subconscious," House said pointedly.

Chase sighed. "Humor me?"

"Nine," House told him grudgingly.

"Do you know what's going on with me? Am I sedated?"

"Let's focus on the patient that I'm being paid to treat, shall we?" House suggested loudly.

"But—"

"They ran tox screens for every poison known to man, did blood tests, the whole shebang. Nada. Treatment for radiation poisoning... never happened, actually, but don't worry, it isn't that. And treatment for pancreatitis failed. Treatment for Waldenstrom's also wasn't working, made his—"

oOo

Chase came back into the dream with a blink, House standing right in front of him, but Jake was now gone. The calendar on the wall displayed that yet another month had gone by.

House was staring at him.

"Did Jake call you?" Chase asked. He was hoping that this was the reason House looked so thrown, and not something to do with the fact that he was dying in real life.

House nodded. "Yeah. He called. And then I called Cameron."

Oh.

"And she told you..." Chase trailed off uncertainly.

"She's rather emotional at the moment," House told him, a trace of wry humor in his voice. "I think she bought out the gift store."

"She had a shift tonight," Chase said, and he didn't really know why this was the first thing that came to mind. He felt oddly hollow at the thought that Cameron was worrying about him.

"I think the fact that you're currently dying put a few things in perspective for her." His words were cutting, as though Cameron had no right to put anything in perspective when it came to Chase.

"So you're still at the CIA, then?" Chase asked, feeling somewhat resigned. House clearly still didn't believe him about the dream, and it was now, in the moment that could have brought he and Cameron together, that he was realizing with a heavy heart that it didn't matter. Nothing had been really put into perspective, it was just the drama of the situation. They were fighting a losing battle.

"Actually, no," House said, making Chase look up in surprise. House grinned wryly. "I'm leaving. On a jet plane. Like the song."

"You're going back to PPTH?" Chase asked, feeling a rush of unbidden excitement. Did that mean that House believed him?

"I still don't believe you," House informed him.

Dammit.

"But I solved the CIA case about five minutes after I woke up last time, so yeah, I'm going back now. I figure I'll stop by your deathbed while I'm there, just to piss off your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Chase muttered, quietly enough that he knew House wouldn't be able to hear it, but loud enough that he could hear how the words sounded.

They sounded good. He felt oddly free, almost light-headed. Cameron was not his girlfriend.

"They still don't know what's wrong with you," House put in conversationally. "Foreman took you on as a second patient—they've apparently run every blood test, tox screen and gel known to man, and they've gotten nowhere. EKG and CT were normal, and as we speak, they're sorting through the results of your MRI."

Chase snorted. "I'm surprised to hear that Foreman cares so much."

House shrugged.

"Am I comatose, or just sedated?" Chase asked.

"EKG was normal. What does that tell you?"

"Coma patients can have perfectly normal EKGs."

"Sedated," House answered, looking slightly disgruntled. "When you first collapsed, you started seizing and they sedated you there. They pulled the sedatives four hours later, but you started seizing again so back under you went."

"Make sure they pull the sedatives when you're there," Chase told him, even though he doubted that House would listen to him. "I know this has something to do with how far away you are, and I swear once you're there, I'll be fine."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm dying," Chase said flatly. "I think the least you can do is respect my dying wishes."

"See, that would work, if I actually believed that you're not just part of this crazy dream." House jerked his head to the side. "C'mon, the eavesdroppers are annoying me. Back to my office."

Chase followed him dutifully.

"How long is the flight back to PPTH?" he asked, after a moment of silence.

"An hour or two," House said offhandedly.

Chase swallowed. No wonder he'd collapsed—two hours on a plane would get you halfway across the States.

"Nothing better to do than sleep," House told him in the same casual tone. "No in-flight movie, no stewardesses to flirt with, no peanuts... Although you wouldn't believe the hot CIA agent I was flirting with today. Too bad she's not here right now, we could have a threesome."

Chase made a face. "No thanks."

"I offered her a position as one of my fellows."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. You're making me get rid of Thirteen and you won't come back—I have to have something nice to look at."

"Cameron wants to come back." Chase stopped as House pulled the door to his office open.

House glanced back at him. "Cameron's boring. Thirteen's still got the mysterious thing going for her, and you know how to fight back. Although she did do a nice job sorting the mail and keeping HR off my back..."

"What did the CIA guy end up having?" Chase asked.

"Turns out he was in Brazil, not Bolivia. Ate too many chestnuts. Hey, lookie, another month went by," House noted as he passed the calendar on his wall.

"That's, what, three months?" Chase did some quick counting from the day that he'd interviewed with House. "Yeah."

He thought about it for a moment. It would make sense that time was passing between the dreams, but why was it increasing? Were they moving towards a certain date? Was it speeding up based on his proximity to House?

"It's gonna start snowing any day, now."

"I hate snow," Chase said, sending a dark look at the window.

House set his cane on the desk and sat down in his chair. "That's just because you never remember to dress warmly."

"I just don't see winter clothes as a solid investment," Chase replied. He glanced at the couch, but after a moment's consideration went for the desk. "And since you fired me, I don't have to spend hours breaking into people's houses or roaming the streets, so what's the point in spending so much money on things I'm only going to wear on the walk from the car to the hospital?"

He settled himself cross-legged on the desk.

"You sure do lead a sad little life for a twenty-eight year-old," House remarked.

"I'm almost thirty-three."

"Whatever."

"I hate the cold." Chase picked up a pen that was sitting on the desk and popped off the cap. "I don't see why anyone would have settled here in the first place. The south is perfectly temperate."

"Why didn't you work down south, then?"

Chase began doodling on the palm of his hand. "I thought I might like snow—I'd never seen it before. Took me all of two weeks to figure out that I hated it."

House frowned. "Ooo. Time to wake up, I think. Bye!"

"Bye," Chase replied, glancing up to see House spin around once in his chair and vanish, and then the world went dark.

oOo

The world faded in around him, revealing that he was back in House's office. House sat across from him, still spinning in his chair.

Chase glanced at the calendar.

"Two months?" he said incredulously. "What the hell?"

Outside, snow was coming down so hard that he could barely see out the window, and there was the sound of the wind whipping and howling against the building.

House grabbed on to the front of the desk, stopping his chair from going around again. "Yeah. And you were wrong, dumbass. I was there, pulled the sedatives and you went nuts—it's got nothing to do with how close I am to you."

"What—no, of course it does." Chase set down the pen, the rising panic in his gut somehow becoming anger. "That's what caused it, and I always get better when I'm near you. You know that's how it works, you were here. House, I know I'm right!"

"Well, if it's any comfort, you're still dying," House offered.

"Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better," Chase snapped.

House shrugged one shoulder.

Exhaling, Chase turned his scowl to the window where snow was coming down wildly. He twisted the pen between his fingers.

"Also," House started, now sounding reluctant. "I might... be willing to believe you about the dream-sharing thing."

Chase stared out the window stonily. "Because that really helps us now."

"It means I can tell you that I'm working on your case. CIA chick joined the team, but she kind of sucks and I'm going to fire her as soon as you're better. Cameron hasn't left your bedside for more than five minutes at a time. Randall and his little friends keep trying to crash our differentials to offer their own insipid suggestions—that guy wasn't kidding when he said that they don't teach diagnostics in surgery, by the way."

Chase dropped the pen and put his head in his hands, letting out a long, slow breath. "His name is Ricky. Ricky and Jake."

"I know. I just find it profoundly disturbing that you have a fanclub that isn't made up of second-shift nurses and Twilight moms."

"You forgot dying nine-year-old girls."

"Them too."

There was a suspended silence in which the only sound was the wind whipping against the windows. His head was starting to hurt.

"Chase."

Chase wouldn't have looked, but House's tone was gentler than he'd ever heard it before.

House leaned forward and pulled open the bottom left drawer of his desk. "See this drawer? This is where I put every case that I wasn't able to solve. Every single one."

Chase leaned forward to peer in, half-expecting it to be empty, but it wasn't. It was surprisingly full.

"Right," he said, sitting back. "And if I die, you'll never forget about me because I'll be down in that drawer, festering in the back of your mind. Great. Thanks."

House slammed the drawer shut, and Chase jumped.

"You're never going to be _in_ that drawer, you idiot," House snarled. "You're not going to die, and you're not going to end up in that drawer, you understand?"

Eyes wide, Chase nodded quickly.

House nodded. "Good."

"If I do die, though, could you—"

"No."

"Just—"

"No. You're not going to die."

"House, you have to be—"

"You have three seconds to shut up. Three."

"You can't live in denial, House."

"Two."

"If you think that when you reach one I'm going to shut up, you've got—"

He stopped at the sound of a knock on the door and glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, House sat up, craning his neck to see.

Cameron, hair brown again and dressed in a skirt and a blouse, poked her head in the door. "Hi. I'm, um, looking for Dr. House?"

Chase's head split open. He gritted his teeth together and held in a groan as his stomach turned over unpleasantly. He brought his head down, hands going to his skull, knees going to his chest.

"Chase?" House asked.

"What—wait, Chase?" Cameron said, sounding startled at the realization. "Chase, what's wrong?"

And it all doubled, tripled, and he fell onto his side, curling in on himself. The world spun and nauseating colors, technicolor, flashed before his eyes.

"You! Out!"

Seconds passed, and it faded. Gradually, his stomach settled and the pain in his head receded, and he took in deep breaths. There were hands on his side—House's hands—and the desk was hard below him. He struggled to reel his senses back in and catch up. It was a miracle he hadn't rolled off or thrown up.

"Better?" House's voice asked, with only a trace of smugness.

Chase nodded, slowly picking himself up off the desk and sitting up, waiting until he was fully upright to open his eyes. The dizziness had gone away completely, leaving him empty and hollow inside.

House was standing over him, hands having readjusted their position to Chase's shoulders instead, and they locked eyes.

"Cameron," Chase said slowly. He turned to see that Cameron was standing just outside the office, looking in at him worriedly through the glass.

House lifted a hand and motioned for Cameron to come in.

She took two steps and Chase grunted, cringing in on himself, hands going to his temples as pain surged inside his head.

"Back!" he heard House shout, and moments later the pain receded.

Chase slowly lifted his head, meeting House's gaze again.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?" House asked, a gleam in his eye.

Chase would have laughed if he thought that he could feel anything other than sinking dread right then. "You said that Cameron hasn't left my bedside."

House snickered. "Heh. You're allergic to your girlfriend."

"But..." Chase shook his head. "That's absurd. Cameron hasn't been giving me headaches—well, I mean, she has, but that's just because every time we see each other, we're fighting. I'm not—I can't be..."

"I'll do an allergy test when I wake up," House promised.

Chase rolled his eyes.

There was a knock on the glass.

"Go away!" House yelled, making Chase wince. "Interviews are over for the day!"

Chase didn't turn around, but he felt the last vestiges of his headache disappear, indicating that Cameron had left.

"This is so messed up," he muttered, putting his head in his hands.

"You're kind of messed up," House pointed out helpfully.

Chase raised his head, snorting. "Really? Have you just avoided mirrors all your life, or is this a recent development of self-ignorance?"

"You want me to save your life or not?"

"So go save it, then," Chase shot back.

"I will."

"Fine."

House sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, and there was a moment of silence.

Chase waited.

House was clearly waiting, too.

Nothing.

The snort of laughter escaped before Chase could stop it.

House opened his eyes, irritated. "Shut up, or I really will let you die."

"You would not. You love me."

"In your dreams, blondie."

Chase smirked. "We are in my dreams."

"My dream."

"Our dream."

"Mine. My dream."

"Well then why don't you—"

And then everything dissolved into darkness.


	12. Chapter 12

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 12**

When Chase woke up next, it wasn't in the blink of an eye and it wasn't in House's office—it was in a bed, somewhere cold and uncomfortable, and he felt... Not sick, precisely, but like he'd just recovered from a particularly bad bout of the flu. It was a feeling of absence that he couldn't put his finger on.

The persistent beep of a heart monitor told him that he was in the hospital, and the dull pressure on the back of his hand told him that he was a patient in the hospital.

His memory quickly filled in the rest of the blanks.

There was a long moment in which he struggled to open his eyes. They weren't cooperating, and the hollow feeling penetrated his skull, making him light-headed and faintly dizzy. But he didn't have a headache and his stomach felt fine, which meant that House had to be around here somewhere...

It was also cold. He shivered, curling in on himself and attempting to burrow under blankets that weren't there. You only got a sheet in the hospital, of course.

"Cold?" a voice asked in a whisper.

Chase attempted to ask who it was, but his throat wasn't cooperating either. It was stuck to itself, all dried out. He managed to groan.

"Don't worry, I'm not your girlfriend."

That answered that.

"She's not my girlfriend," Chase tried to say, but it came out more like, "N'm'grend."

Something cold was pushed against his lips, and it tasted so good and wet that Chase immediately parted his lips and let it slide into his mouth. An ice chip. He ran it along the roof of his mouth, swallowing the cold water until there was nothing left to it. Another one was pressed against his lips, and he took it gratefully.

"You're welcome."

"Thanks," Chase rasped, swallowing the last of the ice.

"How are you?" House asked.

"How you like me," Chase answered, swallowing and trying to get his voice to sound less like he was on a ventilator.

"Alive?"

Chase smirked, feeling his lips crack. "Horizontal."

House snorted. "Funny."

"Fuck yes, I am."

Carefully, he brought his non-IV-pierced hand up to his face and rubbed at his eyes awkwardly (because the bastards had forgotten he was left-handed), and after a second, opened them.

He was definitely in the hospital—his own room, too, from the looks of it—and House was seated next to his bed, bouncing his cane between his hands, a container of ice chips sitting next to him. It was also, quite plainly, night time.

Chase attempted to sit up, but House smacked him down.

"Lay back, you idiot. I just saved your life, don't kill the moment."

"I'm fine now that you decided to listen to me."

"And... there it goes."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Can I have some ice?"

"Get it yourself."

"You told me not to get up."

"Sounds like a problem."

Exhaling, Chase closed his eyes and swallowed. Moments later, ice was being pushed into his mouth, and he knew better than to say thank you.

"The allergy test confirmed the diagnosis, then?" he asked, after letting several ice chips melt in his mouth. His voice sounded much more like his own, now.

"I sent your girlfriend home, came in and pulled the sedatives." Another ice chip. "You're awake and talking, aren't you?"

Chase swallowed and opened his eyes, meeting House's. "So you—I mean, the dreams. I was right?"

House nodded.

"Holy shit."

"Yep."

"Holy _shit_." It was one thing to believe it was real while he was still dreaming. It was another to wake up and find out that he'd been right.

House smirked, sitting back in his chair.

Chase's mind reeled for a good five minutes, trying to really grasp the fact that he and House had somehow been sharing dreams all this time. He had a million questions to ask, but when he opened his mouth, something entirely different popped out.

"She's not my girlfriend."

House raised his eyebrows. "Not that I'm protesting, but I don't think Cameron's aware of this. Either this is a one-way relationship or one of you is seriously confused."

"I'll—" Chase stopped as he suddenly realized that he couldn't exactly talk to Cameron about this. He couldn't even get near her, apparently. "I guess... I mean, I'll get it sorted out eventually. But no, we're not together anymore. We haven't been for a while, really."

"Awesome! I've always wanted to add home-wrecker to my list of credentials," House said, with mock excitement. "I think I'll put it between 'misanthrope' and 'bastard'."

Chase supposed, with a wince of realization, that he _had_ technically been cheating on Cameron.

"You realize that makes you my mistress, right?" he said instead, and he tried to fix House with his very best smug look, but exhaustion was starting to settle in and he was finding it difficult.

"And it makes you the manwhore," House shot back without missing a beat. He was able to pull off the smug look without any problems at all, the misanthropic, home-wrecking bastard.

"It's not cheating if you don't know you're cheating," Chase said evenly, although holding his head up was getting to be too much of a battle. He leaned back into the pillow and closed his eyes, exhaling. "What's the date?"

"It's Friday. Very early on Friday. Don't ask for specifics, it'll just depress me to know how long it's been since I last slept."

"You were in the dreams," Chase protested, attempting to open his eyes and failing. They were too heavy. "You must have slept."

"I've slept for a grand total of three hours since Wednesday," House informed him, in a haughty I'll-have-you-know sort of way.

Chase shifted himself away from House, moving to the left side of the bed.

"I think the rumor mill has had quite enough fun with you over the past few weeks," House replied.

"Mm," Chase said, curling onto his side and trying to move the sheet so that it would be warmer, but he was still freezing. "M'going back to sleep. You should, too. Night."

There was an almighty sigh behind him, and he heard House get up and leave the room. Chase felt something in him tense at the thought of House leaving, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he felt a headache start to dance around the edges of his skull, pushing ever so slightly on the backs of his eyes. He curled tighter, suppressing a whimper, but a second later it washed away and he relaxed. The door opened. House's unique pattern of footsteps sounded, and then Chase felt something warm and heavy fall over him.

A thick blanket.

"Thanks," he mumbled, pulling it up to his chin and reveling in the heat that was quickly gathering underneath the blanket.

But then the bed dipped, and Chase was so alarmed that his eyes shot open and he rolled onto his back to see what was going on.

House's expression just dared him to say something.

Chase knew better. He turned back onto his side, closing his eyes again.

"It's not like I have any other choice," House grumbled as he pulled the sheets over himself. "I'm not sleeping in the damn chair."

Chase smiled faintly to himself.

House was shifting, tossing and turning, clearly trying to find a spot that was, comfortable, had enough room, and did not involve touching Chase. From the sound of things, he wasn't getting very far.

Wordlessly, Chase reached behind him and found House's arm, pulling it over him. House was still for a moment, but eventually wrapped his other arm around Chase and moved closer, resting his head on the spot between Chase's neck and shoulder.

Chase was sound asleep in minutes.

oOo

House's office faded in around him.

"Damn," House said. "I was hoping this would stop."

Chase jumped off of the desk. "At least we know what's going on now."

"Yeah, but I see enough of you all day long. I don't want to _dream_ about you all the time, too."

"Romantic," Chase shot back, but House was right. He didn't think he could keep his sanity if he was working in the same hospital as House, dating him and dreaming about him all night, too. It was too much.

"Seven months have passed since last time," House commented. His eyes moved from the calendar from where Chase was standing at the window, looking out at the snowless campus of the hospital. "Next time, we'll probably run into Foreman."

"A cheering thought."

"And we're going with the theory that time passes faster when one of us is asleep, and the other isn't?" House asked.

"And it seems to be passing faster each time," Chase said, nodding in agreement. "The first time, I swear, it was only twenty minutes that passed, and now we're talking months."

"You've also been unconscious for a day and a half," House pointed out.

Chase frowned. "What do you think will happen when it catches up to real time?"

"Then we'll be running into Thirteen."

"Just what I always wanted," Chase said sarcastically. He paused, and then looked at House. "Did you fire her?"

House shook his head. "I had to get rid of Brennan."

"Why?" Chase asked slowly, swallowing down his immediate reaction to demand to know why House had gone back on their bargain.

"Oh, you know, he was making deals with major hospital donors in order to save his job," House said airily.

"Was he, now?"

"I learned the last time—you've got to nip 'em in the bud."

"Was he dangerously addicted to narcotics, in danger of losing his medical license on a yearly basis, and prone to violently attacking his employees as well?" Chase asked archly.

House spun around in his chair, tilting his head back. "You've got to stop living in the past, honey bunches."

Chase frowned. "Isn't that a cereal?"

"Possibly," House allowed.

"So why did you fire him?" Chase asked.

"He may or may not have poisoned the patient."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. And I couldn't even blame Foreman for not watching him close enough." House sounded disgruntled about this. He apparently hadn't yet gotten over the fact that Cuddy had forced Foreman back onto him.

"It's your own damn fault," Chase said lightly, pointedly. "You keep telling them to do whatever it takes."

"I said I couldn't blame Foreman, didn't I?" House snapped.

Oh.

"Anyway, he wasn't doing it to save his job. He was trying to get funding for polio victims in Ethiopia or something." House rolled his eyes.

Chase snorted softly. "Remember that Sebastian guy we treated? He almost swept Cameron off to Africa?"

"How could I forget?" House turned to face him, a small but wicked grin on his face. "I went through a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and seven seasons of _As the World Turns_ to get through the disappointment when she stayed."

Chase snickered.

And then everything flickered, darkening without warning.

"What's happening?" he asked, grabbing onto the desk as the room started to spin slightly, wobbling and darkening. "House?"

"Beats me."

House had sat up in his chair, holding his cane tightly, and Chase took a step towards him but then he fell down, down the rabbit hole and everything was sucked away.

oOo

The sound of the door opening stirred him from sleep, but not quite enough to be aware of anything other than the fact that there were whispered voices and he was warm and comfortable and incredibly tired.

"Are you sure this is the right room?"

"Dude, I was just here this afternoon. Of course it's the right room."

"That doesn't look like..."

"Oh, shit, dude. We gotta get out of here."

"Wha—oh, shit, that's Dr. House!"

"Go, go, go, go! He's gonna wake up!"

"Wait—this doesn't make any sense. I thought Dr. Chase said he was dating that Cameron chick down in the ER?"

"Ricky!"

"Oh, come on. He's not gonna wake up and kill us on the spot—look, he's sound aslee—hey! Let go of me! Jake!"

"It's for your own good, quit struggling."

"I'm gonna kick—"

"Shut up, you mo—"

The door slammed shut.

Chase drifted back down into sleep, letting the conversation slip from his memory as he did so.

oOo

He came to consciousness alone and feeling as though he were missing something, though he couldn't pinpoint what it was. His heart monitor beeped in the background, and the sound of sneakers squeaking on laminate flooring came from a distance. It had to be morning. But what had...

"You can't ban her from his room, House!"

Wilson.

"He's allergic to her."

"House, that's ridiculous—you can't keep his girlfriend away from him. Just because you saved his life doesn't give you the right to—"

"He doesn't want her here."

"So then let him tell her that. I don't even know what you're doing here in the first place. You fired him, in case you forgot, and the whole hospital knows that you've been at each others' throats ever since."

"He told me that he doesn't want to see her. Last night."

"See this? This is my I-don't-believe-you face."

"We're acquainted."

"Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Nope. I need some way to deal with the immense stresses of being a department head."

"Oh, buy a rock garden, then. Leave Chase alone."

"He's fine, Wilson," Chase broke in, and though his voice was little more than a raspy whisper, it was apparently loud enough to be heard.

"Chase?"

"Well, good morning, fruity pebbles!"

Chase opened his eyes and rolled onto his back, seeing House and Wilson standing at the end of his bed, Wilson with his arms folded across his chest. It was also apparently morning, now. He swallowed several times, but when he spoke his voice hadn't improved much.

"I appreciate the thought, but really, it's fine," he told Wilson. "He's right. I don't want to see Cameron."

Wilson eyed Chase speculatively for a moment, then glanced at House. "You should tell her that yourself, at least," he finally replied. "She was at your side for nearly a day."

"House can tell her for me just fine, thanks," Chase said, and he was about to add that his near-death experience didn't change the fact that they were over when he broke into a coughing fit.

A straw was pushed into his mouth moments later, and Chase drank the water greedily, suppressing another cough.

"You just want to be free to fuck your little intern friend," House said. The sound of his voice was close enough that Chase knew it was him, not Wilson, holding the cup.

Chase opened his mouth, sucking in a deep breath of air. "You're just pissy because you haven't gotten laid without paying for it since Stacy left."

"That's totally not true."

"Dreams don't count, House."

"You want me to dump the rest of this over your head?" House threatened, jerking the cup away.

"You wanna kiss my ass?" Chase shot back.

Wilson sighed. "God, you two are like watching Dysfunctional, Inc."

"Hurray for daddy issues!" House declared, giving Wilson a thumbs up and a grin.

"Hurray for masochism," Chase muttered, snatching the cup out of House's hand and taking a drink.

"I'm gonna go help the people that actually want to be helped, then," Wilson said, rolling his eyes.

He turned to leave and House and Chase shared a quick smirk.

"But I'm not fending Cameron off," Wilson added over his shoulder. "That's up to you two."

Chase made a slurping sound with his straw, attempting to get the last of the water out of the bottom of the cup.

House yanked it away from him. "Come on. Time for vitals check."

Chase scowled, but sat back and waited as House pulled out his penlight and flashed it in front of his eyes. He sat forward, allowing House to listen to his breathing, and waited for him to write it all down before speaking again.

"So what _are_ we going to do about Cameron?"

"Ignore her until she goes away?" House asked hopefully.

Chase rolled his eyes. "All right. What are we going to do about the fact that I can't leave your side, then?"

"You can always rejoin my team," House offered, sounding just as hopeful.

"That's a joke, right?"

"Don't have an other options, do we?"

Chase shot him a dark look. "For your sake, let's hope not."

House sighed. "Okay. Here's my theory: in the dream, how did we get it to stop?"

Chase's eyes widened. "House, no."

"Don't know why you're so opposed to the idea. We've been going at it in our dreams for at least two weeks, now."

"That was different," Chase insisted. "You tend to lose your inhibitions in dreams because you don't have to worry about repercussions."

"And what sort of repercussions might those be?" House asked.

"I'm not sleeping with you while I'm still with Cameron," Chase said flatly.

House opened his mouth.

"I'm not sleeping with you in real life, knowing that you're real, while Cameron still thinks that I'm with her," Chase quickly corrected, before House could start arguing.

"So you can't get near her until you have sex with me, but you won't have sex with me until you can get near her?"

"Refill my cup?" Chase asked, holding it out to him.

"Can't ignore your problems forever, cornflakes," House said in a sing-song voice, but he took the cup and refilled it.

Chase took the cup without a thanks. "Are you really going to keep up with the cereal thing?"

"Does it annoy you?"

"Not at all."

"Then why would I stop?"

Chase took a long drink of water.

"Your little intern buddies stopped by last night," House said.

Chase was wary. "Before or after I woke up?"

"After. If you want to get technical, it was this morning."

"What did you do to them?" Chase asked, eyes narrowing.

"Nothing, unfortunately," House sighed, sitting down in the chair next to Chase's bed. "They were out by the time I was awake."

"By the time..." Chase trailed off as he realized that House was attempting to tell him, in a round-about way, that Ricky and Jake had seen them sleeping together. It brought a flash of memories to his mind, of darkness and warmth and voices, but it was too quick and too vague to catch. "I'm sure they won't tell anyone."

"Yeah, that was my first thought," House said, sarcasm ripe as ever.

Chase winced. "Okay, so maybe not. Here—where's my pager? I can page Ricky in here and ask—"

"Down, boy," House ordered, his cane coming up and thwapping Chase solidly across the chest, pushing him back down onto the bed.

"House, I can sit up," Chase said, irritated, and he tried to get up but House whacked him with the cane again, forcing him back down. "House!"

"You don't need to get your pager," House said patiently.

"I do if you don't want the entire hospital to know about this by lunch," Chase retorted, making another effort that was promptly thwarted. Fed up, he reached up with his right hand and attempted to pull the cane right out of House's hands.

House, having the use of both hands, had no trouble keeping his efforts at bay. "The real question," he said, steadfastly ignoring Chase's one-handed attempts to push his cane away, "is whether you have a problem with the whole hospital knowing about this by lunch."

Chase stopped. "What?"

Apparently satisfied now that he had Chase's attention, House removed his cane. "Do you have a problem with the whole hospital knowing about us?"

"I... Is there an us to know about?" Chase asked carefully.

"Is that a no?"

"It's a—" Chase exhaled, bringing his hand up to rub his face before he remembered that there was an IV embedded in it. "Ouch—dammit..."

House snickered.

"I want to make things official with Cameron, first," Chase said, shaking his head. "Then we can... Do this. You know, I'm surprised we're even talking about this."

"Good idea. Let's stop."

"That wasn't what I meant," Chase said dryly.

"Did you try the new cafeteria chili?" House asked brightly, sitting up in his chair. "I hear it's to _die_ for!"

Chase sighed. It wasn't like he actually wanted to talk about this now, either, he supposed. This whole situation was weird enough that it hurt to think about, anyway.

"It's not all that great."

"Mm. Darn."

"You're really going to hang out here all day?" Chase asked, somewhat dubious of this.

"Do I have a choice?" House asked.

Chase shrugged. "I'm sure I can walk."

oOo

Chase ended up on the floor three steps from the bed, head spinning and completely out of breath.

"This is ridiculous," he panted, eyes squeezed shut.

House's hands were on his shoulders, forcing his head between his knees. "You're pathetic."

"It doesn't make any sense," Chase insisted. The feel of his heart pounding so hard was making him faintly nauseous. "There wasn't anything wrong with me. I should be fine."

"You seized for forty hours straight. Yeah, I can't imagine why you wouldn't be able to get up and do a few miles around the hospital, either," House said sardonically.

Chase rolled his eyes even though they were closed. The world was still spinning and wobbling around him.

"Ready to get up?" House asked.

"Not yet," Chase mumbled. He took in another deep breath, waiting for the world to settle. "Give me a sec."

"Well hurry up, my back is killing me," House complained.

"You don't have to hold my head down," Chase said, with as much irritability as he could muster.

"You're kidding, right? As soon as I let go, your head's gonna come right up, because you're an _idiot_ who doesn't know his limits, and then you'll probably throw up, and then we'll have to call a nurse to clean it up and another to get you off the floor, and by then we'll already have half your fanclub in here so the rest of them will come pouring in to swoon over the poor, vomiting Dr. Chase, and I'll have to—"

"All right, all right," Chase interrupted. He took in a deep, slow breath and then let it out. "I get it. God."

"Oh, whiiiine."

Chase inhaled, his heart still beating hard—not fast, but hard—in his chest, and a bit of the nausea receded. House's hands were on his shoulders, and they tightened for just the barest second and suddenly Chase flashed back to Cameron standing behind him, her tiny hands attempting to rub his shoulders but only succeeding in making him wish for bigger hands, stronger hands, House's hands.

His eyes snapped open and the sudden rush of color and light made him suck in a sharp breath. His stomach flipped and the lights faded in and out for a moment, but then his eyes started to adjust and his stomach settled.

And he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he wanted to be with House. He was ready to give up on Cameron because he was tired of fighting for her and tired of fighting for something that he wasn't even sure he wanted, but House? House, he would fight for. He knew right down to his core that he was ready to fight for him.

He also knew that if he were to voice those thoughts right now, he'd never heard the end of it from House, and he kept his revelation to himself.

"How about now?" House whined.

"Well, I could get up now," Chase said evenly, "but then I'd probably throw up, and you'd have to call a nurse to clean it up and another to get me off the floor, and by then you might as well call the rest of my fanclub in so that they can swoon over me. Or something along those lines."

"And I was just wondering why I'd fired you."

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't regret firing me."

"Why would I regret that? Do I _sound_ like I regret it?"

Chase snorted softly to himself, and started to shake his head but stopped when the world nearly upended itself. "Shit," he breathed, shutting his eyes.

"All right. If you're not up in five minutes, I'm gonna inject you with a sedative that'll knock you out for a week."

"I'll bite you," Chase threated. The world had started to settle again, and he dared to open his eyes.

"Where?" House asked, voice low and suggestive.

Chase sighed. "Okay. I think I'm good."

"No one ever said otherwise," House said smoothly, but his hands slid away.

"You're hys—"

"Cha—oh my God, Chase! What happened!"

Chase's head shot up before he could stop himself, and the world rocked, but not so much that he couldn't see Cameron running into the room in a panicked flurry, down on the floor with him in minutes.

"Oh my God," she gasped, her hands going to his face, cupping his chin. "What happened? Why are you on the floor?"

Chase had gone as stiff as a board and braced himself for waves of agony, but it never came.

"I think we've got it covered," House interjected loudly, his hands having returned to Chase's shoulders.

Cameron did a double-take. "House? What are you doing here?"

"Long story," Chase said.

"About to get longer," House muttered.

Chase had no doubt that House was just as confused as to why he wasn't convulsing on the ground—but then in a burst of revelation he remembered the dream so many nights ago, a sleepy morning in bed with House, kisses, bright blue eyes, and his mind jumped to his realization of a few minutes ago, and he knew. He knew what was going on.

"Did you try to get up?" Cameron suddenly asked, her eyes narrowing, voice accusing.

"No, he just _floated_ over here."

"Yes, I tried to get up," Chase told her patiently. "Clearly, I won't be trying it again soon."

"Clearly," Cameron agreed, nodding her head fervently.

House poked him in the back. "C'mon. Up."

"When did you wake up?" Cameron asked, apparently deciding to disregard House completely.

"Last night," Chase said. He put his hands on the floor, prepared to push himself up, and Cameron immediately moved to help him.

"I was—" Cameron stopped mid-sentence and looked up at House. "What was wrong with him?"

House shrugged. "No idea. Mysterious forces at work, I think."

Cameron didn't buy it for an instant. "House, that's bullshit. I know you, you don't let mysteries alone. What was wrong?"

"Rare brain defect," House threw out.

Cameron's expression was unyielding. "House."

Chase tilted his head back so that he was staring up at House. "Do you think you could give us a moment?"

House was sullen. "I don't know why I should."

"Because I'm asking nicely?"

"Get him off the floor, while you're here," House told Cameron, before he gave Chase a light whack with his cane and then headed for the door.

Chase watched him go, as it was preferable to looking at Cameron.

"What was wrong?" Cameron asked, the moment the door shut behind House.

Suppressing a sigh, Chase turned to her. "Cameron. Look."

Cameron bit down on her lip, visibly bracing herself.

"This isn't working," Chase said gently.

"What isn't working?" Cameron looked genuinely confused.

"Us."

"Wait—you want to talk about this now?" Cameron asked, faintly incredulous. "Now?"

"I'm tired of trying," Chase told her, trying to keep his voice calm, but he couldn't help the note of slightly hysterical exhaustion that crept in. "I'm tired of fighting to make this work when it's going nowhere and not making either of us happy."

"Where is this coming from?" Cameron demanded. Her eyes searched his face. "Did House say something?"

Yes.

"No, House didn't say anything. It's just—"

Was it fair to play the near-death-experience card?

Yes, it was.

"I almost died," he said seriously, looking her square in the eye. "I could die tomorrow. You could die tonight. Neither one of us is happy together, so what the hell are we still doing with each other?"

Cameron looked like she'd been slapped, but she quickly recovered.

"I just sat at your bedside for a day and a half, and you're going to break up with me?" she asked slowly, her fury funneling into her words, making them icy and biting.

"It's not that I don't care about you," Chase quickly tried to explain. "I do, I swear I do, I just—we just don't work as lovers."

"Well, so much for putting in more effort," Cameron said waspishly.

"Cameron, you can do so much better than me," Chase told her, pleading for her to understand. "You're a wonderful woman, you're beautiful, you—"

She slapped him.

"You don't take things sitting down," Chase added under his breath, hand going to his face.

"You are a pathetic excuse for a man, Robert Chase," Cameron hissed. "I hope you die alone."

Chase winced, watching her march out of the room and nearly hit House (who was, predictably, eavesdropping) as she threw the door open. For a moment, Chase thought that she would lose control and go flying at House, but she stormed past him and disappeared down the hallway.

He was alone for a moment, and then House stuck his head in.

"Sounds like things went swimmingly!"

Chase exhaled and grabbed onto his IV pole, pulling himself up. The room spun, but he managed to get back to his bed without falling over again or throwing up, and he sat down on the mattress gratefully.

"So," House continued, coming into the room. "I think the more interesting thing here is why you were actually able to talk to her."

Chase arranged himself so that he was laying back down in the bed, and then pulled the bed rail back up.

"Because it kind of goes against last night's theory."

"I don't have a clue," Chase said at last, pulling the blankets back up over himself.

He had a pretty good guess as to why he'd suddenly been able to talk to Cameron—and why his proximity to House was no longer an issue—but he'd be damned if he was ever going to say it out loud.

"Oh, sure. Go to sleep. I'll just sit here and ponder this all out by myself," House said as Chase curled up on his side.

"Go buy me break-up ice cream," Chase suggested, closing his eyes. He wasn't actually tired, but he wanted time alone with his thoughts. He couldn't believe that he'd just broken up with Cameron. Just like that. What the hell was he doing?

"Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia?" Sarcastic as always.

Chase smiled to himself. "I'd say both, but you wouldn't be able to carry it, would you?"

"If this is an attempt at reverse psychology, you're failing miserably."

"Good night, House."

"And what am I supposed to do? Sit here and knit?"

Chase didn't answer, pretending to let sleep carry him off to unconsciousness.


	13. Chapter 13

**Worlds Away From Who I Was**

**Chapter 13**

Chase was discharged the following morning (all right, he signed out AMA, but really, it was only against House's overprotective medical advice so he wasn't really concerned) and immediately fell into his own bed, sinking down into a dreamless sleep. Not that the dreams had ended—he and House had had yet another shared dream last night, in which they'd encountered Foreman and Rebecca the kindergarten teacher—but House was awake and back at the hospital today, so Chase slept without dreams.

He hadn't been asleep two hours when the sound of his phone vibrating woke him up. House had a case and wanted him to consult, so Chase threw out a few grouchy suggestions before hanging up on him and rolling over to go back to sleep. It wasn't until the sound of his phone vibrating woke him again that he realized that it might be more than House just wanting to consult him on a case, although it didn't stop him from being pissed at being woken up.

Then the third call came, and just as he hung up the doorbell rang.

Chase gave up on sleeping at all.

Cameron greeted him, not at all fazed or even bothered by the fact that he was only wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and brushed past him and into his kitchen before he could get in a word otherwise. Chase retreated to his bedroom and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, then went to deal with Cameron.

"How are you feeling?" Cameron asked, while giving him an appraising look.

"Tired." Chase opened the cupboard and pulled out a box of cornflakes and a bowl. "You want some?"

"It's three in the afternoon."

Chase took that as a no, and poured himself a bowl in silence.

"I didn't come here to fight," Cameron began haltingly.

"The fact that you preface this conversation with that makes me uneasy," Chase said before he could stop himself.

"But I don't appreciate the sarcasm," Cameron replied frostily. "I came here to talk like the civilized, educated doctors that we are. If you can't handle that, I can leave."

Shit. House was seriously rubbing off on him.

"Sorry," he apologized, pouring milk into his cereal and then turning around, hoping that it would make it seem more like he meant it.

Cameron looked somewhat appeased.

"I wanted to apologize for hitting you yesterday," she said, her tone softening. "It was uncalled for."

Chase took a bite of cereal.

Cameron had apparently been expecting an answer, and when she realized that she wasn't getting one, sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "But for the record, I think you're wrong. We could work, if we tried."

Chase swallowed. "I don't want to have to try that hard. I don't mean it to sound cruel, but it's really not worth it. I don't want to feel like I'm losing myself just to stay in this relationship."

"Is that how you felt?" Cameron asked quietly.

"A bit, yeah," Chase answered, his eyes going to his cereal.

Cameron hesitated.

Chase crammed in a huge bite of cereal, sensing that he wasn't going to like the next words out of her mouth.

"Is there someone else?"

Chase's chewing rate vastly reduced itself. That was not the question he wanted to answer right now.

"No," he told her, swallowing. "Not... yet. But there might be." There would be.

Cameron nodded slowly, saying nothing.

"I'm sorry," Chase said honestly. "I really am. I think we work well together as colleagues and friends."

"Who is it?" Cameron asked.

Chase hurriedly dug into his cereal.

"And don't take another bite of cereal," Cameron snapped. "It's tacky."

Slightly put off, Chase set the spoon down and figured to hell with it, the truth would probably be all over the hospital by this evening anyway. "It's House."

The apartment was silent for five whole seconds.

"House?" Cameron repeated incredulously. "After all that shit you gave me about still being in love with him, after you told me that it was four years ago and he didn't matter anymore—after he _fired_ you? Do you remember that? He fired you, without a reason, without even a warning!"

"Yes, he did," Chase said mildly.

"This is just—it's some kind of savior complex thing, after he saved your life," Cameron reasoned, crossing over to him. "It's natural to feel this way, and you shouldn't be making rash decisions like this when you're clearly—"

"Allison, stop," Chase interrupted.

She stopped.

He set the cereal bowl down. "I knew before he saved my life. And what's more, even if I didn't think that there was a chance for House and I, I'd still feel the same way about us. I'm tired of trying."

"But I'm not," Cameron whispered, her eyes suddenly shining.

"We were barely together," Chase pointed out gently, now definitely feeling guilty. "We grabbed lunch when we could and we went out sometimes, but it was always second to work, second to ourselves, and—hell, if I'm honest, I think I was just desperate to be with somebody."

"Well, yeah," Cameron said, offering him a watery smile. "That's how this whole thing started, right?"

He was now feeling bad enough that he pulled Cameron into a loose hug. "I'm sorry," he said softly into her hair. "I'm sorry."

She latched on briefly, squeezing, and then pulled back. "You might be right," she admitted, reaching up and wiping at her eyes.

Relief rushed into his lungs and he smiled. "It's like a weight's gone, right?"

Cameron nodded, sniffling.

Chase reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, unable to keep his mouth from turning upwards.

She blinked a few times, crossing her arms over her stomach but smiling weakly at him. "I guess this is a bad time to tell you that I'm pregnant, right?"

Chase's brain misfired and for a split second, everything in him stopped.

"That's not funny," he choked out.

Cameron's face split into a shaky grin. "I know. I couldn't resist."

Chase closed his eyes, dizzy and laughing softly.

"I'm gonna go home," Cameron said, stepping back. The last of her tears had dried up and her hands went down to her pockets. "And I don't want to see you ever again. For a while."

Chase dumped the rest of his cereal down the sink as the door slammed behind her.

oOo

He ended up at the hospital by dinnertime, unable to sleep any longer and bored out of his mind. He wasn't stupid enough to wander over to surgery, or go anywhere near the fourth floor or the auditorium where House had been basing himself lately, and the ER was also out in case Cameron had come in to work off her emotions, so he wound up in maternity.

"Still no parents, huh?" he asked Natalie, his eyes scanning over her chart from the days that he'd missed. They were hoping to release her on Monday, starting her on a course of physical therapy over at a clinic on the other side of town—there was a consult scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Natalie was asleep at the moment, and didn't reply.

Chase wondered what her life would be like at home. He knew (he hoped) that her parents would bathe her and feed her and change her diaper, but he'd seen parents weeks after losing a child and they walked around in a void, seeing no other life. Babies needed more than an autopilot parent to take care of them. There had been countless studies done that showed they needed to be read to and played with and paid attention to. Would she get that at home? Would her parents bury themselves in work? Would they ever be able to look at their daughter without seeing their ghost, too?

He wished, for the final fleeting moment he had before he reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to be this attached to patients, that he could meet her parents before they took her home.

With a sigh, he hung the chart back on her incubator.

"Aren't you supposed to be half-dead?" a voice asked from behind him, sounding amused.

Chase turned to see Kate standing behind him, putting her hair up.

"Completely dead, actually," he corrected, while his eyes took in her mis-matched scrubs and her lipstick, which had all but faded away. "You're just currently experiencing an altered state that allows you to see me as an astral projection."

She laughed, twisting her hair one last time before letting the ponytail snap into place. "You doctors, I swear, you guys have no lives outside of this hospital."

"But we've got bugger-all drama inside of it," Chase said, grinning.

Kate rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. Especially when it comes to you."

"I see you're working day shift, now," Chase noted, quickly changing the subject away from himself. He was sick and tired of dealing with the PPTH rumor mill.

Kate made a face. "Yeah. The whole school thing didn't work out. I'm gonna try again next year."

"What happened?" Chase asked, and he found himself looking her over again, searching for some kind of clue, but he couldn't find anything.

"I... messed up," Kate said lightly, but her eyes went to the floor. "In a big way. I'd rather not talk about it."

Chase wanted to ask for more details, but he stopped himself just in time. He barely knew Kate—if she didn't want to talk about it, that was her business.

"Better luck next year, then." He offered her a smile.

For a moment, Kate looked disappointed, but she quickly hid it with a smile and nodded. "Thanks."

Now confused, Chase slowly nodded back. What was with the disappointment?

"Her parents still haven't been in to see her," Kate said, pointing to Natalie. "Since I know that's the only reason you're here."

Chase thanked her and left, pushing aside the feeling that he had missed something important in that conversation.

He'd worked countless hours in NICU and anytime there were multiples, it was pretty rare that all of them made it. But that was different than here—when Zoe had died, she hadn't been a newborn. She'd had nearly three months with her parents, learning where her feet were and how to smile and hold her head up, three months of unconditional love that her parents had had ripped away from them, and that made this different.

And of course, what also made this different was the fact that he was entirely too attached to this little girl. There were people in place to make sure that she would be fine. His job had ended when they'd pushed her out of the OR, and he needed to realize that. She would be fine.

"Dr. Chase? What are you doing here, man?"

Chase hadn't even seen Jake, he'd been so wrapped up in his thoughts.

"They sent me home, but I got bored," he said with a shrug. "Decided to come and loiter for a bit. I heard you were the one who got Dr. House to save my life, though."

Jake nodded eagerly. "Yeah. It was really weird—I just had this dream, and I knew you used to work for him and everything, plus you're way too cool to die, so I just... called him up."

"Thank you," Chase said seriously, absolutely meaning it. If it hadn't been for Jake going out on a limb with that phone call, House might not have believed him until it was too late.

"Dude," Jake said, throwing an arm around Chase and leaning in close, voice low, "I gotta tell you, though. Ricky and I went to go see you Friday night while we were on call and, uh, I know you're with Dr. Cameron and everything, but that wasn't her in bed with you. And I know it's not my place, and I'm not gonna say anything, but dude—"

"We aren't together anymore," Chase broke in, turning so that they were facing each other. "Dr. Cameron and I. But I'd appreciate it if you did keep what you guys saw... to yourselves."

"Oh, no, totally!" Jake reassured him immediately. "I got your back, man. I just wanted to let you know."

Chase smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"So, uh, I guess this means you're off the market?" Jake asked after a moment.

Chase nodded. "Yeah, I am."

"Cool," Jake said, bobbing his head. "I'm happy for you. And anytime you wanna go out with me and Ricky, just let us know. Or anytime you got any cool surgeries that you could use some extra hands on..."

And then, like a light switch had been flipped, Chase realized what he'd missed when he'd been talking to Kate.

Sheesh. The first sign that he was going to be single soon and suddenly he had a hundred new best friends—he hadn't been this popular before dating Cameron, had he?

"I'm not allowed to come back to work until at least Monday," Chase said apologetically. "So I've got nothing for now. Go hit up some other resident."

"Actually, I'm supposed to be down in the ER." Jake jerked his thumb in the general direction. "Suture duty. See you around!"

"Bye," Chase replied, waving as Jake took off down the hallway, probably already late for wherever he was headed.

Wilson spotted him not twenty minutes later in the skills lab and pulled him into his office. He at least didn't mention the fact that Chase was here instead of at home, resting, like he should be—Chase figured that he was used to it with House and knew that his efforts would be in vain.

oOo

"I'm glad you're here, actually," Wilson said, shutting the door behind them. "I wanted to talk to you."

Oh, great. Maybe Wilson wanted to proposition him, too.

Chase kept the remark to himself and sat down in the chair across from Wilson's desk. "What about?"

"About whatever it is you and House are doing," Wilson said bluntly.

"Doing... with what?" Chase asked. He wasn't being deliberately obtuse. Really.

"Each other. What's going on between the two of you?"

"Why don't you just ask House?" Chase asked.

"_You_ try asking House about his personal life."

"Point," Chase conceded.

Wilson looked at him expectantly.

"We're... trying to do something," Chase said haltingly. He was struggling to put it into words as much as he was struggling to let himself put a label on it. It wasn't like he and House were ever going to discuss it, which left the labeling duty to him. "I don't really know what it is. Dating, I suppose."

Wilson raised his eyebrows. "Wow."

"It's a recent thing," Chase said quickly. "Very recent. Despite the rumors, we haven't actually done anything during the last four years."

Wilson digested this for a long moment, and then snorted softly. "You know, three years ago, I think I would be asking you what the hell you thought you were doing, but to tell you the truth, I'm not worried right now. You know how to handle him."

Chase grinned wickedly. "He can be a handful."

Wilson nodded. "I know."

Chase frowned, wondering if Wilson had completely missed the innuendo.

"What, you thought that in all the years we've known each other we've never experimented?" Wilson asked, raising an eyebrow.

"House told me otherwise," Chase challenged, raising his eyebrows.

Wilson started. "Really?"

The surprise in Wilson's face was genuine.

"Clearly, you two should talk."

"And we should change the subject," Wilson added, sitting up in his chair. "What's going on with that girl you had me check up on, a few days ago?"

It took Chase a moment to remember that he'd asked Wilson to check on Natalie's parents for him, back when he'd been in the doghouse for having to leave during her separation surgery. He also made a quick mental note to press House more about whether or not he and Wilson had ever tried anything.

"Right. She's, uh, doing good. Out of the incubator. Her parents still haven't been in to see her yet, which worries me, but I think she's be fine. Kids bounce back like crazy."

Wilson nodded. "That's good. I've seen it loads of times in my department—if you ever need—"

Chase's phone went off, cutting him off.

"Sorry," he muttered, pulling it out of his pocket. "It's House. Hang on—hi, House."

"Hey there, cocoa puffs."

Chase rolled his eyes, but by now he'd given up. House would eventually run out of cereals. "I'm fine. I ate. I napped. I even drove."

"You're at the hospital," House surmised, not sounding pleased.

"Like you'd be able to sit at home for a full day," Chase retorted. "I was bored."

"The doctors didn't clear you to drive."

"You didn't clear me to drive," Chase corrected. He got up out of his chair, waved goodbye to Wilson and headed out in case this discussion got ugly. "I'm fine to drive."

"Fine. Don't expect me to identify your mangled body down at the coroner's office, though." He could that House's breathing was slightly labored. He must be walking. "While you're here, you should come and watch the show. Case is over."

Chase frowned, heading in the direction of House's office. "Then what'd you call me for in the first place?"

"You'll see. Come to my classroom."

"The auditorium you hijacked?" Chase asked.

"Semantics," House said dismissively. "Seriously. Get your ass down here, it's gonna be awesome."

Chase rolled his eyes. "I'm on my way."

"Also, you should give me a ride home."

"Why would I do that?"

"I rode my bike. It's cold."

"And you say that I'm the one who never remembers that it gets cold."

"Aw, c'mon. My leg hurts."

"Sucks to be you."

"You're really going to make me beg in front of my fellows?" House whined. "Really?"

"I'll see you in a few minutes, House," Chase said, and then he shut the phone before House could say anything more.

oOo

It didn't occur to him until he was in the auditorium that he realized that the end of the case meant that it was time for House to fire somebody. Half of House's remaining fellows were seated in the auditorium, and House was nowhere to be seen. Unperturbed, Chase made his way down the front of the room and seated himself on the desk.

"Are you filling in for House?" Kutner asked.

Chase shook his head. "Nope. Just heard there was free popcorn."

"Shouldn't you be in your hospital room?" Cutthroat Bitch asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Nope."

He sat at the desk, lightly kicking his heels against the front and waiting patiently for House to arrive. He noted that Thirteen was also missing from the group, as were the short, balding man and Foreman. Cole was checking his watch periodically and looking anxious.

"Maybe it's a test," Kutner whispered to Cole.

"It had better not be," Cole muttered. "Ten minutes and I'm out of here."

Chase wondered for a moment if he was, indeed, unwittingly part of one of House's convoluted tests, but dismissed the idea when he remembered that House hadn't even known that he was in the hospital ten minutes ago. Kutner was just paranoid. House was just—

And right on cue, House strode into the room, closely followed by his missing fellows and Foreman. He stopped at the top of the stairs (Chase knew that those weren't going to be fun) and scanned the room while Thirteen and the other fellow took their seats with the others. Foreman remained at the top with House until House said something quiet that had Foreman quickly descending the steps down to the front, where he snorted at the sight of Chase on the desk and took a seat on the chair next to it.

Of course.

"No more cameras," House announced, going down the first step. "So you can all stop acting like imbeciles, now."

Chase had no idea what he was talking about, but added it to his mental list of things to ask House about, eventually.

"And unfortunately for you all," House went on, descending another step, "yesterday's firing didn't actually count. I only bought six passes for mini golf on Sunday, and that ol' windmill is just too much fun for me to give up my pass, and Foreman offered to treat for ice cream afterward, so getting rid of him would just be rude, so... That leaves you five."

"What's Chase doing here?" Cutthroat Bitch demanded loudly.

"Let's ask ourselves, which of us acted like the biggest dumbass on camera?"

Chase saw Kutner shift uneasily.

"Wrong question," House decided, moving down another step. "What I'm more interested in is who acted like the biggest dumbass _off_ camera?"

The tension in the room jacked up a few notches.

"More specifically, which one of you retards thought it would a good idea to try to blackmail my boyfriend, hm?"

Chase blinked. Boyfriend?

Several heads swiveled in his direction.

"Wilson?" Kutner mouthed at Cole.

Cole shrugged. And because it was apparently agreed that neither of them had blackmailed Wilson and were therefore safe for another week, they grinned and bumped fists at their victory.

"Thirteen!" House barked. "You're fired. Sayonara."

Her eyes widened. "But—but I just solved the case!"

"And yet, you were so unsure of your ability to solve cases that you felt you had to resort to underhanded, illegal measures. Get some confidence, learn not to blackmail the people your boss cares about, get out of my auditorium. And not in that order."

House took another step down. Chase wondered why he hadn't just come in the back and avoided the steps all together—it wasn't too noticeable, but House was definitely in pain.

"I did what I had to do," Thirteen insisted furiously, getting up out of her seat. "Cutthroat Bitch tortured me and you called it clever, but I have a few conversations with him—" She flung out her arm in Chase's direction. "—and I get _fired?_"

Even Foreman turned to stare at Chase, this time.

Chase attempted not to squirm.

"Cutthroat Bitch only sabotaged her competition," House answered calmly, drawing the attention back to himself. "You repeatedly sabotaged someone in another department. And you know, I didn't fire you after you killed the one dude because I thought you'd learned your lesson, but you've been endangering the lives of Chase's patients ever since. I was wrong, clearly."

"I never did anything to endanger his patients! And why do you care about him?" Thirteen demanded. She looked progressively more and more upset as House refused to look at her. "I know the two of you aren't dating. You fired him!"

"Is she really still talking?" House asked, jerking his thumb in her direction.

"You can't fire me, this isn't fair grounds, I deserve to be fired for something I actually—"

"Hey!"

Chase turned to stare at Foreman and the rest of the room followed in suit. Even House had his eyebrows raised.

"You're fired," Foreman said harshly. "Get over it. Get out."

Thirteen's eyes widened and she looked around, but found no support.

Chase waited.

House took another careful step down, appearing utterly unconcerned with the drama in the room.

"Fine," Thirteen said at last, making her way towards the aisle. "I hope you two _are_ fucking—you deserve each other."

House rolled his eyes as Thirteen marched up the aisle and out of the auditorium without looking back.

The tension broke as soon as she was gone, and the fellows were suddenly whispering and muttering amongst themselves, sneaking glances at Chase. Chase did his best to appear indifferent to it all, but truthfully, he was worried. What kind of rumors were going to be flying around by tomorrow morning? What would Cameron think?

"Boyfriend?" Foreman asked quietly, pulling Chase back to the present.

Chase shrugged. "He likes the shock value. You know he does."

Behind them, the fellows had started to clear out, still speaking in furtive whispers.

"You told me last week you were still dating Cameron," Foreman said, incredulity obvious despite the softness of his voice.

"I was."

Foreman stared at him for a long moment, and then sat back. "Whatever, man. I give up."

Chase smirked.

"Hey you," House interrupted loudly, whacking Chase's shin with his cane. "You said you were gonna give me a ride home."

"I did no such thing," Chase replied primly, and he jumped down from the desk. "You forgot to watch the weather report. That's not my problem."

"C'mon. I held up my end of the deal and everything!"

Chase rolled his eyes. "House, here's how a deal works: you give something, and you get something. You already got your something."

"I forget what it was," House said promptly.

"Half the betting pool," Chase reminded him shortly. "I'm going home. Good night."

"Wait, he _paid_ you to fire Thirteen?" Foreman demanded.

"No. Weren't you listening? We made a deal, Thirteen was part of the goods," House said impatiently. "Chase—"

"I should tell Cuddy about this!"

"Oh, anything but that. Chase—"

"Don't think I won't, House. That's illegal."

"So is blackmail. Cha—"

"House, I'm serious here."

Chase smirked to himself, already halfway up the stairs.

oOo

House peered in through the blinds. "This is counter-mining my proof of no afterlife. That baby is dead. He died two years ago."

"Your experiments in search of the afterlife were somewhat flawed," Chase pointed out.

"Think I need to double-blind? Increase the sample size?"

"Stop trying to kill yourself altogether, I think."

"Psht." House looked over at Chase. "What's science without a little risk?"

"I feel inclined to point out that Zoe was also alive in this dream when she was dead in real life," Chase said, smoothly putting the conversation back on to dead people.

"Why didn't you mention that the first time around?" House asked.

Chase shrugged. "I thought it was just another dream, at that point. Everyone has dead people in their dreams."

House cast a dark look at the room and the living-but-should-be-dead baby inside it, and then started walking down the hallway. Chase followed.

"We're only a year and a half behind. At this rate, we're going to catch up to real time by Tuesday," House said as they walked.

"Where are we going?"

"You know, leaving me alone in a room with a lecturing Foreman and no warm method of getting home, it wasn't the nicest thing you've ever done."

"Well, _you're_ not the nicest thing I've ever done," Chase pointed out.

House scowled. "That totally doesn't justify leaving me stranded in the hospital."

"What, you didn't ride your bike home?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow.

House continued to scowl.

Chase felt the first trickle of guilt. "Where are you, then?"

"The couch in my office," House informed him. "And that never agrees with my leg, so don't expect me to be as sweet-natured as I usually am, tomorrow."

"Seriously?" Chase said disbelievingly. "You couldn't have asked for a ride home, or taken the damn bus? You _had_ to go and make a martyr of yourself?"

"No one was left except Foreman," House snapped. "And again, with the whole lecturing thing..."

"It wasn't even that cold out," Chase retorted.

"Cold makes my leg hurt."

"It _wasn't_ that—" Chase stopped, abruptly realizing what House was trying to say. "Oh."

Oh, hell.

oOo

He pushed open the door to House's office, trying to be as quiet as possible. Hospitals weren't lifeless at night, but when it came to long hallways of offices like the one that House's was in, it was as dark and creepy as it got. House's sleeping figure was just a dark shadow on the couch, almost indistinguishable. Chase nearly stepped on House's cell phone, which was laying on the ground near his head and was obviously meant to serve as an alarm at some point.

Sighing softly, he crouched down next to House and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently.

"House," he whispered, although he wasn't quite sure why he was so afraid to spoil the silence. "House, wake up."

House groaned and mumbled something, attempting to turn away.

"House!" Chase hissed, a little louder this time.

House cracked an eye open. "G'way."

"Get up," Chase whispered. "I'm giving you a ride."

"Yours or mine?" House mumbled tiredly.

"Mine's closer."

"Have you washed your sheets since Cameron was in your bed?" House asked. He reached up and scrubbed at his face.

"Since I last had sex with her, or since she was last in it?"

House opened his eyes. "It's a mutually exclusive event?"

"Your place is fine," Chase sighed. "Given that I still know how to get there."

"Of course you do. And you still have your key, as we established a few days ago."

Chase straightened as House pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Where's your cane at?" he asked, looking around. His eyes hadn't adjusted to the lighting enough to let him see that clearly, yet.

"Desk," House grunted, his leg obviously hurting him as he swung his legs over the side of the couch, preparing to stand.

Chase reached over and grabbed it, holding it out to House.

"You could have just given me the damn ride home and avoided this mess," House muttered as he readied himself.

"_You_ could have just driven the 'Vette to work," Chase retorted.

House grunted, and then slowly stood up. Chase considered trying to assist him, but quickly thought better of it. His job was to stand here and act natural.

"You gonna survive?" he asked. "The weather's mighty cold, you might freeze on the walk to the car. Maybe I should give you my coat, yeah?"

House flipped him off.

Chase opened the door for him, letting him go first so that he wouldn't see the grin.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Notes: **I just want to thank everyone who's been so kind to leave me such wonderful reviews, some of you taking the time to do so for each and every chapter. I appreciate your words more than I will ever be able to say. We're finally here at the last chapter, and I also want to make it clear that there will be no sequels, no "missing moments", no one-shots of this 'verse. I may write more House/Chase, but if I do, it won't be until June or July, when I have the time--in the meantime, spread the love and try writing your own! This fic has shown me that House/Chase is _not _a dead 'ship, and that its fans are still out there, as crazy and Cameron-hating as they ever are, and we need to work together to bring this 'ship back to its former glory. Go forth--go forth and write!

**Worlds Away From Who I Was  
Chapter 14**

"You think this might be the last one?" Chase asked, bouncing the ball off of the wall.

House shrugged, sitting back in his office chair. "If one of us takes a nap tomorrow, maybe. There's, what, four months between now and... uh, other now?"

"Five," Chase replied absently.

"Right. We lost almost two years last night," House said, now really talking to himself.

He didn't mention the fact that they'd lost those two years because his leg had been to the point of not being able to sleep, and despite Chase's best efforts to stay awake with him, House had spent the night alone and pacing. He'd fallen asleep around noon, but by then Chase had been up... The conflicting sleep schedules had resulted in the loss of two years. Not that it was a bad thing. Chase couldn't wait for these dreams to be over.

"If you took a nap tomorrow, this might be the last one," House finally suggested.

Chase threw him a dirty look. "I told you at least five times, House. Peters put me in charge of a liver transplant tomorrow, it's my first day back, I'm not taking off. End of story."

"Where's your team spirit?"

"Why don't _you_ take a nap tomorrow?" Chase asked.

"Can't." House opened his drawer and started moving things around. "Department head. I'm not just a flunky like you, sitting around and playing video games all day."

"You're lucky I appreciate your sense of irony as much as your sense of humor."

"Who said anything about irony?"

Chase rolled his eyes and bounced the ball against the wall again.

House finally emerged from behind his desk, triumphantly holding a bag of Skittles. "Hah! I knew that I bought these around this time."

Bounce.

The sound of the door opening made him look over, and he saw Wilson coming into the room, file in hand.

"You're both missing Foreman's farewell party," he informed them mildly.

"Must've slipped my mind." House made a face, twirling his finger next to his ear. "Old age, you know, it messes with the brain. Can't remember like you used to."

"And you?" Wilson asked, looking at Chase expectantly.

Chase shrugged, throwing the ball and narrowly missing Wilson's shoulder. "It's a party, he should be happy. Therefore, I'm not there."

Wilson frowned. "I still think that he'd like to—"

"Wilson," House interrupted loudly. "Can we get to the part where you attempt to attempt to convince me to take this new case?"

"One too many 'attempt to's, House," Chase muttered.

"Is not," House said. "I'm not even going to give him that chance to attempt—therefore, he's attempting to attempt."

"There's no attempting about it," Wilson said, laying the folder down. "I—"

"See? This is me blocking his attempts to attempt," House told Chase.

Chase blinked. "It doesn't even sound like a _word_ anymore."

House looked pleased.

"You have a patient," Wilson told him firmly. "She's got eleven different symptoms and she's illegally here from Cuba, just to see you."

Chase caught the ball and didn't throw it at the wall again. He looked over at House, curiosity piqued.

House flipped the file open, giving it a quick once-over, and then grinned brightly at Chase. "Hey, guess what? This is the part where I fire you!"

"What?" Wilson asked, horrified.

"I'll take the case, now go. Shoo-shoo," House said, making shooing motions at Wilson.

Wilson eyed House suspiciously before turning to leave, and tried to make eye contact with Chase as he passed by but Chase was having none of it. Looking somewhere between worried and exasperated, he pushed the door open and left.

"So," Chase said into the silence.

Tension had come out of nowhere.

House shut the file, pushing it away. "Go tell the patient her diagnosis."

"I wasn't here when you solved the case the first time," Chase reminded him evenly.

"Oh, yeah."

Chase stood up, holding the ball between his hands. "Are you going to fire me again?"

"Considering this is a dream, where nothing is of any consequence?" House asked. "No. Don't think so."

"That wasn't what I was asking," Chase said, now actively working to keep the tightness out of his voice.

House sighed, leaning back in his chair. His eyes went to the ceiling. "You want to know why I fired you."

Chase said nothing.

"It's not gonna change anything," House warned.

"That doesn't mean it's not important," Chase said quietly.

Another long sigh, an even longer pause.

"I don't want to tell you."

"House."

"Oh, c'mon. No points for honesty?"

"How about I make suggestions, and you tell me yes or no?" Chase asked, unable to keep the acidity out of his voice.

"I'm not interested in hearing your melodramatic theories." House dumped a pile of Skittles into his hand and held them out to Chase. "They probably all involve me being jealous of you and Cameron, and hoping that firing you would break the two of you up."

Chase ignored the Skittles. "It is something you'd do."

House gave him a withering look. "I'm not jealous of Cameron."

Chase nodded. "All right."

"I fired you because you were more irritating than Cameron that day," House said abruptly.

"What?"

"You can kid yourself all you like, thinking that I did it because I thought you were ready to _fly_, or because you were beginning to understand me, or because I had repressed feelings for you—bullshit." House sat up and dumped the bag of Skittles all over the desk, staring Chase directly in the eye. "It's bullshit. Wilson was on me about changing, you were annoying me, I decided to fire you."

Chase reminded himself that he'd asked for this.

"On the other hand," House said thoughtfully, looking off into the distance. "Well, no. I can't say I regret firing you, because I don't. Now. Even if I didn't mean to, kicking you out of the nest did you a lot of good. But for the first week after, yeah, I probably wouldn't have done it again."

Coming from House, that was practically a declaration of undying love. It didn't make it any easier to digest, though.

House was looking at him, waiting for a reaction, waiting for him to pass some sort of test.

"Thanks," Chase said at last.

"That hurt, didn't it?" House asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chase sighed. "It would hurt less if you gave me all the green Skittles."

He'd get over it. House was right, after all—being fired had brought him to the world of surgery, where he was slowly learning the rudiments of office politics, earning his own name, dealing with crazy interns, and perfecting the art of sarcasm. Now that he was free of the relationship that had been smothering him for months, he felt like he was breathing in his life away from diagnostics for the first time.

Honesty was what he'd asked for, and it was what he'd gotten.

oOo

Heading a liver transplant wasn't actually all that exciting. It was a pretty routine surgery, and Chase had just been in on a harvesting last week, but it was his first non-appie solo surgery in _ages_ and that was enough to get him excited. He even pulled Ricky into the surgery ("Seriously? A liver transplant? Could you find something with _less_ blood?" "Yes, welcome to office politics. Take it or leave it."). The rumors flying around the hospital about him had apparently doubled in his absence, but by this point Chase was practically indifferent to it all.

"You could start a betting pool," Ricky suggested.

"Right. Because the last one left everyone really happy with me," Chase said dryly.

"I could start a betting pool," Ricky tried. "Really, we could just model it after the one in Radiology for House and Wilson, except this one would be for you and House. I'll give you twenty-five percent."

"I thought that betting pool was a myth?" Chase said, frowning.

Ricky shrugged. "Maybe. Jake says he put money down on it, but he might have been joking..."

Chase made a mental note to find out. Getting a straight answer out of House about his history with Wilson was also moved up a few spaces on his list of priorities.

"So I'm off of House Alert duty," Ricky said conversationally.

"How'd you do that?" Chase asked.

"Dr. House didn't think I was recounting in enough detail or something," Ricky said cheerfully, clearly not too upset about it. "Not exactly sure. He went on a really long rant, and I caught the 'hey you' and 'you're fired' parts. I think Nurse Brenda's already found—"

"Dr. Chase," a voice cut in, making both of them stop and look up.

"Hello, Dr. Peters," Chase replied calmly.

"May I speak to him alone, please?" Peters asked Ricky, fixing him with a stare.

Ricky nodded quickly, disappearing a second later.

"Walk with me?" Peters asked.

Chase knew from the liver transplant this morning that he wasn't too far into the doghouse. "Sure. What's going on?"

"I'll be frank. I asked you to get your personal life under control, and yet it's only seemed to have spiraled further out of control over the past week," Peters said, tone dangerously light. "Do you want to explain that to me?"

Chase took a moment to swallow the anger that had started to boil up inside of him, but after a moment's consideration, decided not to apologize and swear to do better as he knew that Peters was expecting him to do.

"With all due respect, sir, my personal life is very much under control," he said tightly. "I broke up with my girlfriend and found a new relationship with someone else. It happens all the time in the hospital—the only difference is that people, for whatever reason, take an interest in gossiping about me. I'm unclear as to how you expect me to singlehandedly stop the hospital rumor mill. Sir."

Peters stopped walking, staring at him. His expression was unreadable.

Chase knew he should probably be worrying about keeping his job, and whether he would be seeing the inside of an OR sometime in the next decade, but he could only hear the blood rushing in his ears. So much for starting to get a handle on office politics.

"So you do have a backbone," Peters said, with a mirthless smile.

Chase stared back, quiet and defiant.

"Kurtzman took a liking to you, you know. Even when you couldn't be bothered to clear your schedule for his surgery."

"I like it here," Chase replied steadily.

"He would be delighted to have you," Peters told him. "He thinks you would excel in obstetrics and pediatrics, especially with your history in the NICU."

"I like it here," Chase repeated.

"He requested your help tomorrow in a surgery he's heading here," Peters said, and it was obvious that he was making an effort to suppress the distaste this idea caused him. "You can pick up the files at the nurse's station across from the board. Clear your schedule this time."

"I will."

Peters nodded and strode away.

Chase, reeling a little from the fact that not only was he going to see the inside of an OR again, but he was also being sought out by one of the leading neonatal surgeons in the state, if not the northeastern United States. The bubble of excitement that rose up in him could not be helped, and a grin split across his face.

His good mood faltered as he approached the surgical board. Alan Sarghetti was arguing loudly with the nurse at the station.

"Look, I don't care what he told you—take me off. I'm done!"

The nurse—Chase didn't know her name—glared at him. "There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry."

"In the past week, I've done nearly eight surgeries for Dr. House, and six biopsies. I want to be on a surgery that isn't for House," he practically growled, hands on the counter flexing.

Oh, brother.

Chase approached the desk, politely shouldering past Alan. "Hi. I need Dr. Kurtzman's files, please."

Still scowling, the nurse reached over and grabbed a white folder among a file of tan folders and thrust it at him. "Here."

"Who told you that I was Dr. House's exclusive surgeon?" Alan demanded, going right back to it as Chase left.

Chase flipped open the file, reading as he walked. Owen, born at thirty weeks with a hole in his heart, scheduled for surgery tomorrow...

oOo

"House, take Alan Sarghetti off your personal call."

House looked up from his desk. "Well, hello to you, too."

"Take him off. You can wait in line, just like everyone else," Chase continued, coming up to House's desk.

"I don't see what's wrong with having your own personal surgeon," House replied with a shrug.

Chase sighed. "It's a teaching hospital. The people in the surgical program are here to learn, and they're not going to do it with exploratories and biopsies. You can hire someone to do your personal surgeries, if you feel that contrary about it."

"You don't even like the guy," House complained, making a face.

"House."

"Pick a card," House said, holding a fan of cards.

Chase rolled his eyes and obliged, picking up the nine of diamonds. He slid it neatly back into the fanned cards, and House closed the deck.

"So there's a surgeon over at Princeton General who wants to train me," Chase said, as House made a show of shuffling the cards. "Me, personally."

"Princeton General has cold bathrooms. Never work in a place with cold bathroom," House said. "Ready to see your card?"

"I'm not going," Chase said, shaking his head.

House held the deck in his left hand, and then flipped the first card over. "Nine of diamonds!"

Chase smiled. "Cute."

But then House flipped the next card over. "Nine of diamonds again! And, hey, again. And again. Wait a minute..."

He turned the deck over and let the cards spill out all over the desk, revealing a deck full of nines of diamonds.

Chase's eyes widened. "How did you do that?"

House smirked, gathering the cards back up. "Magician never reveals his secrets."

"Fine."

He shuffled once, then fanned out the cards to reveal that they were no longer all nines of diamonds.

Chase held out a hand, and House closed the deck and handed it over.

"So why are you telling me about this Princeton General guy, if you're not transferring?" House asked.

"I think it's an interesting specialty," Chase said thoughtfully. He shuffled the cards twice more, and then fanned them out. "We're constantly calling Kurtzman in for surgeries on newborns, anyway—if I can fill that gap, I'll be indispensable, which means that I won't have to deal with the bloody politics anymore."

House picked one up. "Literally bloody, or British-expletive bloody?"

"Both." Chase closed the deck. "Put it on top, please."

House obliged.

Chase took the deck, slipping House's card to the bottom of the pile while he shuffled them twice, and then he cut the deck. He held the deck upright in one hand, House's card located in the back, and used his other hand to pretend to draw the card up out of the deck. He used his thumb to slowly push the card up, holding the deck at the right angle so that it gave the illusion that the card was floating up out of the middle of the deck.

House grinned. "Cute."

"Honestly, I think I'm done with magic for a while," Chase admitted, letting the card fall back down into the deck. "What brought this on?"

"My patient's a magician," House said, now looking vaguely disgruntled. "I can't figure him out."

"I would say the fun's in not knowing, but I think we both know that's not true," Chase said.

House nodded.

It was quiet for a moment.

"And on that note," Chase said, remembering his earlier conversation with Ricky. "Wilson says that the two of you have definitely messed around, which leaves me a little confused. I thought you told me that nothing had ever happened between the two of you?"

House scowled. "Wilson's got a big mouth and an even bigger imagination. He likes to think something happened."

"Should I feel threatened?" Chase asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Wilson did say something about gonorrhea..."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Please don't start another rumor."

"Been there, done that." House reached over and grabbed the cards out of Chase's hands. "Trust me. It didn't inhibit Wilson's sex life in the least."

"So why is Wilson under the impression that the two of you had sex?" Chase pressed.

It took House a moment to answer.

"One of his bachelor parties," he answered at last. "We got ridiculously drunk, neither one of us remembers what happened that night. Just, you know, the waking up naked and together part. Did anything actually happen? The world may never know."

"Oh," Chase said.

He honestly tried to hold back his snort of laughter. He did.

House raised an eyebrow. "It's funny?"

"The whole hospital's been speculating for years," Chase snickered, "and even _you two_ don't know whether or not you've ever done anything. I think it's brilliant."

"Most people wouldn't find this funny," House said, eying Chase. He sounded as though he weren't quite sure what to make of this.

"Cameron wouldn't find this funny," Chase corrected, still grinning. "I don't care who you've slept with. You've done worse things in your life, especially when it comes to me."

"True."

"Anyway, I've got surgery in twenty," Chase said, pushing himself up out of his chair. "See you tonight?"

House grinned wickedly. "I brought the bike."

Chase gave him a thumbs up before heading out of the office, inexplicably knowing that this next surgery was going to be a success. It wasn't magic. He could just feel it in his bones.

oOo

That night, their sleep was dreamless.

**End**


End file.
